Comprehensive coverage and updates on MENA Venture Capital across the MENA tech ecosystem.
Map the disclosed Saudi fintech capital of the past year by what it funds rather than by who raised it, and most of it is not equity for growth. It is credit facilities for loan books, which is a different market at a different stage.
Between a fund announcement and a cheque in a founder's account sit regulatory clearance, a first close, a deployment period, reserves and fees. Each one shrinks the number, and the LEAP announcements show every stage of the sequence at once.
Nine rounds worth $126.15 million were announced on day three alone, and almost none of the Saudi money went to model building. It went to lending, marketplaces, HR software and games, which says something specific about what local investors will underwrite.
Azraq is selling continuous risk assessment to the people financing Gulf data centres, in place of static consultant reports that can cost up to a million dollars. The round was oversubscribed and the amount was not disclosed.
Organisers put the week's announcements, investments and agreements at nearly $15 billion. The daily totals released during LEAP do not sum to that number, and no category breakdown was published, so here is what can actually be reconstructed from the disclosed deals.
Impact46 appears in the Syarah, ZenHR and Takahouse rounds, having backed two gaming studios with Merak Capital in July. Read as five separate stories it is a busy quarter. Read together it is a firm holding rather than hunting.
A social card game with more than 140,000 users funded the company. The round is aimed at the transition every game studio either makes or does not: from one title to a portfolio.
A $6m bridge led by Impact46, four years after a $10m growth round led by somebody else. What a bridge is for, and why HR software is a good place to attach financial services.
A round that size without an institutional lead is unusual. So is the product: financing, tokenisation and trading tools aimed at the part of the market where private companies and their investors have the least infrastructure.
The Saudi online car marketplace took $12m from Impact46 to widen its new and used inventory. Impact46 first put money in during 2020, which makes this a continuation rather than an arrival.