CNTXT AI
Abu Dhabi data and AI company that labels training data, builds Arabic voice AI (Munsit) and deploys AI on customer infrastructure. It announced a USD 60 million Series A in June 2026.
Industry: Data and AI infrastructure | Location: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates | Founded: 2023 | Total Funding: USD 60M
About CNTXT AI
CNTXT AI is a data and artificial intelligence company based in Abu Dhabi. It provides tools, training data and infrastructure so that governments, banks, hospitals and large enterprises can build AI applications while keeping their data inside their own organisation or country. Its pitch rests on data residency and regulatory compliance, which are becoming procurement requirements for public-sector and regulated buyers in the region. The company was founded by Mohammad Abu Sheikh, who is its chief executive. His earlier venture, LocAI, which builds applications on top of large language models, was later acquired by AI71. In an interview with Enterprise, Abu Sheikh said CNTXT grew from a request by a friend leading a semi-government entity in Abu Dhabi who wanted an Arabic large language model. The company went on to work with G42 and the Technology Innovation Institute. Its products include Munsit, an Arabic voice AI platform. Munsit began as an Arabic speech-to-text model unveiled in 2025 and has grown into a fuller voice engine; in 2026 it was paired with a text-to-speech model called Faseeh, covering more than 25 dialects, and the company announced Munsit Edge, which runs speech recognition on phones and other devices without a cloud connection. According to the company, Munsit has processed more than one million minutes of speech and is used by more than 250 enterprises and 150,000 users. Its accuracy claims come from CNTXT AI's own announcements. Another product, TestAI, lets clients assess model performance and reliability before deployment. In June 2026 CNTXT AI closed a USD 60 million Series A round co-led by AI71 and BlueFive Capital. AI71 is an Abu Dhabi applied AI company focused on sovereign, domain-specialised AI. BlueFive Capital is a GCC-originated asset manager that recently led the CargoX driverless logistics round and invested in LeasePlan Emirates. CNTXT AI said the money would go towards product development, entry into new markets and deploying secure AI infrastructure for enterprise and public-sector customers worldwide. The round followed, by days, the company's acquisition of Actualize, an enterprise AI startup building dialect-aware Arabic voice agents, reported by Wamda and Entrepreneur Middle East in June 2026. Actualize was founded in 2023 by Muhammed Shabreen and Khalid Ghiboub. Shabreen joined CNTXT AI as chief technology officer and Ghiboub as vice president of AI models. Actualize's technology is being folded into CNTXT AI's portfolio, including Munsit, to serve banking, healthcare, customer service, media and government clients. No price was disclosed for the deal.
Leadership
- Mohammad Abu Sheikh, Founder and Chief Executive
- Hassan Abu Sheikh, Co-founder
- Mohammad Abu Sheikh, Chief Executive
- Muhammed Shabreen, Chief Technology Officer
- Khalid Ghiboub, Vice President of AI Models