Gate Capital News Letter | Issue 728

FAST Ventures, the Dubai-based marketing holding company, has announced the launch of FAST Foundry, its investment arm and venture studio backed by a $3 million fund to support early-stage startups across the MENA region. The fund targets founders building the next wave of adtech, retail, creator, AI, and marketing products with global potential.

FAST Foundry combines investment with the full FAST Ventures ecosystem, giving startups access to specialist teams across products, marketing, creators, and AI. The goal is to provide founders with a clear and structured path from idea to early traction.

Revibe, the fast-growing marketplace for refurbished electronics, has raised $17 million in a new funding round led by Partech, with participation from E& Capital, Burda Principal Investments, and EQNX, alongside existing investors. The new funding will help Revibe continue improving its service quality and accelerate its international expansion across the Gulf region and emerging markets.

Founded in 2022 by Abdessamad Ben Zakour and Hamza Iraqui, Revibe offers consumers a smarter and more sustainable way to buy electronics by combining strict quality controls, competitive pricing, and a premium digital shopping experience.

ADES Holding Co. announced successful completion of its acquisition of Shelf Drilling, Ltd. through a cash merger. This acquisition solidifies ADES’ market position across its countries of operation, combining extensive reach with a premium fleet mix, positioning ADES as the industry’s partner of choice.

This acquisition solidifies ADES’s market position across its countries of operation, combining extensive reach with a premium fleet mix. This provides exceptional multi-year revenue visibility, along with strong resilience against market volatility and significant capacity to capture large-scale growth opportunities, the statement added.

The US-based Founders Fund has led a Series A investment round in Mnzil, the workforce housing solutions company, with continued participation from COTU Ventures, for a total value of SAR 44Mn+. This marks the fund’s first-ever lead check in Saudi Arabia.

STAMP, a Saudi-based regtech startup, announced that it has raised $2 million in a pre-seed funding round to accelerate the development of its AI-powered compliance and corporate operations platform.

With the new funding, STAMP aims to advance its artificial intelligence capabilities and continue building a comprehensive regtech solution that helps organisations optimise governance.

Buildroid AI, an AI robotics startup, today emerged from stealth with $2 million in pre-seed funding led by Tim Draper, known for backing Tesla, SpaceX, Skype, and Robinhood. The company also announced the launch of its first block-laying robot, built using BIM-to-BUILD simulation, and unveiled the technology at the Big Five Construction Conference.

Propeller, a venture capital firm focused on AI infrastructure, today announced the launch of its $50 million Fund III, designed to connect MENA’s technical and entrepreneurial talent with the market opportunities of Silicon Valley and to link cutting-edge AI startups in the USA with the key players implementing large-scale AI infrastructure projects in the Middle East. Rooted in Jordan, Propeller now operates across Amman, Riyadh, Boston, and Silicon Valley, bridging the MENA and U.S. ecosystems.

Building on the success of its first two funds, Propeller’s third fund will focus exclusively on software startups building horizontal AI infrastructure and AI-native applications, from silicon-adjacent to enterprise workflows.

Abu Dhabi-based Modon Holding P.S.C has made its first foray into an equestrian-led development in the United States with an investment in Wellington Lifestyle Partners. The ADX-listed holding company joins a consortium of existing investors in the development. The value of the investment was not disclosed.

Strataphy, a deep-tech company redefining how the world cools AI and industrial infrastructure, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Outliers VC and joined by Shorooq, with participation from PlusVC (+VC).

The company will use the new funding to advance its technology, expand its full-service stack, and grow its engineering and operations teams to support new deployments across gigaprojects, industrial facilities, and hyperscale data centres in MENA and beyond

bluworks (bluworks.io), a Cairo-based HR tech startup specialising in workforce management solutions, has closed a $1 million seed funding round to accelerate growth across Egypt and expand regionally. The round was led by A15, Enza Capital, and Beltone Venture Capital, Acasia Ventures alongside strategic angel investors.

Led by cofounders Hussein Wahdan and Farah Osman, bluworks has shown strong growth since its launch in 2022.

Kingpin, a UAE-based AI-native SaaS company redefining how brands, distributors, and wholesalers find, approach and transact with retailers, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding to accelerate its global distribution platform.

The round was backed by US-based Infinity Ventures, Red Swan Ventures, and Mu Ventures, as well as UAE-based COTU and Outliers, with support from Hub71

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) successfully completed the accelerated bookbuild offering (ABO) for institutional investors to sell part of its stake, representing 3.3%, in Umm Al Qura for Development and Construction Co. (Masar).

Citigroup Saudi Arabia and SNB Capital are acting as joint global coordinators, together with EFG Hermes KSA — collectively as joint bookrunners for the ABO of the PIF. The sale was executed through off-market negotiated deals on Nov. 26, before the market opened, in line with the negotiated deals mechanism outlined in the trading and membership procedures issued by Tadawul.

Bahrain-based GFH Financial Group’s wholly owned unit GFH Partners has acquired a controlling stake in UAE-based Devmark Real Estate Brokers as part of a strategy to expand the company’s footprint in the property market.

Saudi Arabia-listed Obeikan Glass Company has fully acquired Obeikan AGC Company for SAR 22.89 million ($6.1 million). The company, which previously held a minority stake (19%) in Obeikan AGC, now has full strategic and operational control over the coated glass manufacturing business.

Saudi Arabia and UAE are poised to lead the Gulf region’s economic expansion in 2026, supported by strong private-sector performance, resilient domestic demand and renewed investment momentum, according to the latest ICAEW Economic Insight Q4 2025 report, produced by Oxford Economics.

Across the GCC, non-energy activity is projected to expand by 4.1% in 2026, driven by strong labour markets, improving credit conditions and rising investment in technology and AI-related infrastructure. Consumer spending remains a key engine of growth, expected to increase by an average of 3.5% over 2026–2027. Although oil revenues will be under pressure in the first half of 2026, production is expected to rise again in the second half of 2026, supporting the region’s medium-term outlook

Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC (TAQA) and DUBAL Holding are set to acquire Emirates Global Aluminium’s (EGA) power and water generation assets for $1.9 billion (7 billion dirhams).

Bahrain-based alternative investment firm Investcorp will sell its majority stake in Shine, a European unicorn and digital platform for small and medium-sized businesses to Cegid, a cloud management and AI solutions business majority owned by Silver Lake.

Abu Dhabi investment firm Alpha Dhabi Holding has acquired a 1.6 billion UAE dirhams ($436 million) stake in NMDC Group, previously held by AD Ports Group. The stake represents 82.5 million shares in NMDC, or 9.77% of its share capital.