Startups in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) raised $254 million in March across 54 deals, up 186% month on month (MoM) from February's $88.7 million and 1.17% year on year (YoY) from the $251 million raised in March 2023.

March witnessed a surge in investment activity, breaking the downward trend seen in January and February and bringing Q1 totals to $429 million through 129 funding rounds. However, we cannot say that the ecosystem has entirely recovered, as the activity remains 62% lower than in the same quarter last year.

LEAP24, held in Riyadh from March 4–7, propelled Saudi startups to the top of the list once again, garnering a total of $198 million across 25 transactions, $130 million of which went to Salla's pre-IPO round, relegating the UAE to second place with $39 million raised by 12 startups. Meanwhile, Egypt was a distant third, with eight startups raising $7 million.

The majority of funding went to software as a service (SaaS) providers, harvesting $130.6 million in nine deals, outpacing fintech, which saw $40 million over 12 transactions, while four e-commerce startups landed $18 million.

Except for Salla’s deal, this month lacked big ticket sizes and later-stage funding, as seed rounds attracted $49 million from investors’ pockets, while four startups were given $38.5 million at their Series A stage. In the meantime, 16 startups won grants totaling $1.75 million.

One of the most noticeable trends is the decline in investment allotted to the business-to-customer (B2C) model, which received $48 million, or 19% of total investment, while the business-to-business (B2B) sector drew the majority, with $188 million, accounting for 74% of total rounds.

As ever, male-led startups counted almost 90% of the deals, and female-led stratups formed only 0.21% of transactions, while the rest went to mixed-gender founders.

As ever, startups founded by men comprised almost 90% of the deals, while female-founded startups formed only 0.2% of transactions, while the rest went to male and female co-founded teams.

Last month, 11 startups did not disclose the amount they raised. We gave 10 of them a conservative $100,000 each. They include Grintafy, 30Med, Seeru, Zameeli, Receiptable, Pharmacy Marts, Talabatcom App, Eesee, Kaskade Finance, and Houmata. Mojo was allocated $1 million for its undisclosed round.

Motion in the ecosystem

March saw several mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals, including the MBC Group acquiring a 14% stake in Anghami and Egypt's MNT-Halan acquiring Pakistan's Advans Microfinance Bank. In addition, Classera, the global edtech powerhouse, has purchased Saudi Arabia's Expert Solutions, while RasMal has acquired Pentugram, Mitgo has acquired Embedded, and Saudi Arabia's T2 has acquired Omani data analysis startup Promize.

Billions of dollars in investment funds were announced at LEAP24, including the $500 million KSA Logistics Fund III launched by Bahrain's Arcapita Capital, Saudi Arabia's National Development Fund's two VC funds valued at $120 million, and the $100 million investment pledged by the UAE's Gulf Capital and RDIA.

These monthly reports are a collaboration between Wamda and Digital Digest.