Intel for the founders, entrepreneurs and investors in MENA
Joined August 2026
- Tweets123
- Following1
- Followers15
- Likes32
How two brothers turned a bedroom in Amsterdam into the exchange behind 85% of the world's crypto options trades, and sold it to Coinbase for $4.2 billion.
@DeribitOfficial @coinbase
#Deribit #Coinbase #Dubai #Crypto #FoundingMENA
Best and worst places to get an office in Dubai
Sam and Sam discuss the most overrated and underrated locations to get an office in Dubai. Let us know in the comments if you agree (or not)!
watch full video:
youtube.com/@FoundingMENASho…
But are founders thinking big enough?
From Saudi Arabia's AI infrastructure to venture capital and building technology for global markets, the Founding MENA Show explores the ideas shaping the region's future.
Watch the full episode. link on bio
#FoundingMENA #MENAStartups #ArtificialIntelligence #VentureCapital #SaudiArabia
He was pushed out of the food-delivery company he founded. Seven years later, his new company is reportedly circling a bid to buy it.
@HungerStation @ejj88
#Ninja #SaudiArabia #QuickCommerce #FoodDelivery #FounderStory #StartupStory #SaudiStartups #FoundingMENA
JUST IN 🇦🇪🇸🇦🇪🇬: YouTube has launched its Shopping Affiliate Program in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
@YouTube users watch over 40 billion hours of shopping-related content globally every year. In June 2026 alone, more than 40 million logged-in users across the MENA region searched for shopping-related content on YouTube.
Eligible creators in the YouTube Partner Program with 500+ subscribers can now tag products directly in their videos, Shorts, and live streams.
When viewers purchase those products, the creator earns a commission.
@amazon launches as the first affiliate partner, with more retailers to follow. Google AI automatically identifies products on-screen and suggests tags, removing the manual work of attribution.
And for viewers watching on TV, a QR code on-screen lets them complete the purchase instantly on their phone.
For brands operating across the UAE, KSA, and Egypt, influencer relationships now carry a direct revenue attribution mechanism.
For creators, the dependency on sponsorship deals as the primary business model has a meaningful new alternative.
👀 Interested in MENA tech & startups? Sign up for my weekly newsletter here: lnkd.in/dDQadS8D
#MENA #startup #vc
Building “for the region” can become a ceiling for MENA founders.
The ambition should be to build companies that can compete with the best in the world, regardless of where they started.
Click on the link in our bio to watch the full show.
#FoundingMENA #MENAStartups #Entrepreneurship #StartupEcosystem #Founders
Generational companies are being built in MENA. Are you paying attention?
Introducing the Founding MENA Show, a new weekly show covering the biggest tech, startup, and business moves across the region.
Follow @foundingmena for weekly insights into the people, deals, and ideas shaping MENA's startup ecosystem.
watch full video here: youtube.com/@FoundingMENASho…
#FoundingMENA #MENAStartups #VentureCapital #MiddleEastBusiness #Startups
🇦🇪 Which company produced the most MENA founders who raised money in 2026?
PwC Middle East
Its alumni co-founded 7 of the MENA startups that raised an equity round this year, more than any other employer.
I teamed up with Crustdata (YC F24) to analyze 391 founders of 221 MENA startups that raised in 2026 and where they worked before starting up:
- PwC: 8 founders, 7 startups
- Citi: 6 founders, 5 startups
- McKinsey & Company: 6 founders, 5 startups
- Accenture: 5 founders, 5 startups
- Vodafone: 5 founders, 3 startups
- Deloitte: 4 founders, 4 startups
- J.P. Morgan: 4 founders, 4 startups
- Cisco: 4 founders, 3 startups
- Elm Company: 4 founders, 3 startups
- Standard Chartered: 4 founders, 3 startups
- IBM: 4 founders, 2 startups
7 of the 11 are consulting firms or banks.
Great people can come from anywhere, but there are organisations that consistently produce founder talent.
👀 Interested in MENA tech & startups? Sign up for my weekly newsletter here: lnkd.in/dDQadS8D
#MENA #startup #vc
🇦🇪 The hackathon to launch your startup closes applications in 24 hours!
Not to build an MVP. Not to demo an idea.
To launch.
On Saturday 31st October, 100 builders come to Dubai for one day and leave with a real business.
Built on Replit. Live by the evening.
The winning team walks away with:
👉🏼 $25,000 in cash from 21 Ventures Ventures
👉🏼 Company setup in Dubai with Rise Accounting
👉🏼 Legal cover from Mishcon de Reya LLP
👉🏼 A full year of CapQuest
👉🏼 Free payment processing from Paymob
👉🏼 12 months of Canva Business
All delivered in partnership with Dubai Founders HQ.
That covers setup, legal, cap table, payments and brand, so the winners have what they need to start.
If you’ve been sitting on an idea and telling yourself “one day”, this is that day.
Solo or pairs. Pre-revenue only. 100 places.
Applications close tomorrow, Saturday 17th October.
Apply here: luma.com/wzjsa324
#MENA #startup #vc
@fasset is the UAE's newest unicorn, and it is building an interest-free bank. The company raised $68 million at a $1 billion valuation this month, just three months after raising another $51 million. Its founders met while advising the UAE Prime Minister's Office, and the company now operates across 125 countries with more than $40 billion in annualised transaction volume. Full story in the carousel.
#FoundingMENA #UAEUnicorn #Fasset #InterestFreeBank #StableCoin #Startups
Nobody in his own neighbourhood would open the door for him. So he tied his invitation card to a bunch of mint, and ended up naming the company after it.
#FoundingMENA #Nana #SamiAlhelwah #SaudiArabia #Riyadh #MENAStartups #FounderStory #SaudiStartups #StartupStory
JUST IN 🇸🇦: Napster Corp. @napster and HUMAIN @HUMAIN have partnered to build Arabic-native AI agents.
Napster, the US-based embodied AI company, is integrating HUMAIN’s models into its platform because HUMAIN’s Arabic capabilities are better than what Napster could source elsewhere.
Napster builds embodied AI agents, the kind that have video presence, voice, persistent memory, and can operate as digital employees across web, mobile, phone, and physical environments.
The issue is that an AI agent that stumbles over Arabic isn’t a workforce solution.
What Napster gains through the integration:
→ ALLAM — HUMAIN’s Arabic LLM for text generation, summarisation, and function calling
→ HUMAIN Voice ASR Real Time — Arabic-first real-time speech recognition
→ HUMAIN Voice TTS Real Time — natural speech synthesis across multiple Arabic dialects
This gives Naptster Arabic-fluent digital employees that understand and communicate natively and can be deployed at scale inside public and private sector organisations across MENA.
👀 Interested in MENA tech & startups? Sign up for my weekly newsletter here: lnkd.in/dDQadS8D
#MENA #startup #vc
How two Cairo University students turned a rejected app into Instabug, now running on more than 4 billion devices.
#Instabug #Egypt #Cairo #FounderStory #StartupStory #EgyptianStartups #FoundingMENA
Founding MENA × Replit. We're bringing a new hackathon to Dubai on 31st October.
We're partnering with Dubai Founders HQ to bring builders together for 12 hours to turn an idea into a real business.
We're also joined by Canva, Paymob, Rise Accounting, CapQuest and Mishcon de Reya, each bringing support for the winning team.
The goal is simple: help builders go beyond the idea and take the first step towards launching a business.
One idea. 12 hours. $50,000 in prizes.
31 October 2026 · Dubai
Want in?
Sign up now:
luma.com/wzjsa324
#MENA #Startup #Hackathon #Dubai #Replit
How a 17-year-old breadwinner became a six-time founder, and raised one of the biggest seed rounds MENA has ever seen. @Botim_Official
#Mal #AbdallahAbuSheikh #BOTIM #FounderStory #StartupStory #FoundingMENA