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Welcome to the Tech A newsletter.
This Week’s edition is packed! 🚀 MENA startup funding hit $258M in November, First UAE commercial drone delivery license! and many more news...

⚡ Your 2-Minute Summary

This Week’s edition is packed! 🚀 MENA startup funding hit $258M in November, First UAE commercial drone delivery license! and many more news...

Latest highlights from the MENA tech ecosystem:

📊 MENA Startup Funding: Record 92% month-on-month growth with key sectors emerging

🤖 Interesting Agentic AI article: Set to add $320B to MENA GDP by 2030. Business opportunity ahead for Edtech companies.

📋 Policy Updates: First UAE commercial drone delivery license attributed to Keeta Drone

🧬 BioSapien: $5.5M raise signals deeptech momentum

💰 Funding Programs:

• Zaka AI Competition: $20K in prizes

• New $100M Web3 Fund in Abu Dhabi

• MBZUAI 2025 admissions now open for Master & PhD in AI

🎯 Events: Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival 2025 offering AED 200K pitch competition, upcoming deadline for startup spot: December 31, 2024

📚 Resource: Latest UAE Healthcare Industry Analysis available

📊 MENA Tech Updates

MENA Startup Funding Recap : November 2024

The MENA startup ecosystem showed strong momentum in November 2024, with $258 million raised across 46 deals - a 92% month-on-month increase. Key highlights:

• UAE leads funding with $146M across 11 deals

  • eyewa's $100M Series C

  • Lean Technologies' $67.5M Series B

• Saudi Arabia follows with $94M (23 startups)

• Egypt secured $16M (8 startups)

• Sector trends: E-commerce leads ($104M), followed by fintech ($80M) and SaaS ($21M)

💡 Business Opportunity: Later-stage funding is gaining traction in MENA, with significant Series B/C rounds. This signals maturation of the ecosystem and increased investor confidence. To get all the details: link

Agentic AI: Next Growth Engine for MENA

An excellent article in gulf business about Agentic AI. Here is the important data

PwC predicts AI will contribute $320bn to MENA's GDP by 2030 (11% of total GDP). UAE expects 33.5% annual GDP growth from AI implementation. The region is now moving from AI adoption to innovation with developments like:

• UAE's Falcon LLM

• Saudi's ALLaM Arabic model

• G42's culturally-aware Jais model

💡 Business Opportunities for Training & Education Startups:

• 42% of MENA CEOs report difficulty hiring for tech roles

• 50% of employees need reskilling by 2025 (WEF)

• Major government initiatives:

  • UAE: 100,000 coders by 2026

  • Saudi: Human Capability Development Program

  • Qatar: TASMU Smart program

Key Areas for Education Startups:

• Cultural AI training programs

• Cross-cultural AI implementation

• Technical upskilling courses

• AI integration workshops

• Industry-specific AI application training

Source: Link

Major Policy & Industry Updates

UAE's First Commercial BVLOS Drone License

Keeta Drone (Meituan subsidiary) secured UAE's first commercial Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone delivery license from DCAA.

💡 Business Impact:

• Dubai aims for drone delivery coverage of 33% by 2030

• Creates opportunities for:

  • Drone service providers

  • Last-mile delivery solutions

  • Healthcare/medical supply logistics

  • Food delivery innovations

Source: link

Biotech Breakthrough: BioSapien's $5.5M Raise

UAE-based BioSapien secured $5.5M pre-Series A funding led by Global Ventures, marking significant progress in MENA's biotech sector.

💡 Market Signal: Global VCs showing increased interest in MENA deeptech

Source: link

💶 Tech Funding & Support programs

Zaka Early Stage AI Competition

• Deadline: January 6, 2025

• Prizes up to $20,000 in AI services

• Free GPU access

• Requirements:

  • Max 2 years operational

  • Under $100K raised

  • Working prototype

  • AI/ML-driven product

Source: Zaka website

The Hashgraph Group's $100M Web3 Fund

A new MENA fund that invests in early stage deeptech companies!

• New ADGM-licensed VC fund

• Focus: AI, Blockchain, Robotics, Quantum Computing

• First $20M committed by The Hashgraph Association

• Target: Early-stage and established deeptech companies

Source: Zawya

Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence 2025/26 Admissions Open

If you want to get a AI Master or PhD degree in UAE, this is the place to be:

• Priority deadline: January 15, 2025

• Full scholarships available

• Programs: Computer Science, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, NLP, Robotics

• World-class faculty (5:1 student ratio)

Source: link

🗓️ Upcoming Events

Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival (SEF) 2025

This is one event you shouldn’t miss if you’re a tech investors or startup founder!

• Dates: February 1-2, 2025

• Location: SRTI Park

• Key Deadlines:

  • Startup Pod applications: December 31, 2024

  • Pitch Competition (AED 200,000 prize pool): January 8, 2025

• Tracks: EdTech, Manufacturing, Sustainability, Creative Industries

💡 Tip: Focus on the pitch competition's sustainability and manufacturing tracks, which align with UAE's industrial strategy.

For more details: https://sharjahef.com/

🤝 Resources Of The Week

Latest Healthcare Industry Report: UAE Healthcare Industry Analysis

• Explores GenAI opportunities in UAE healthcare

• Market trends and implementation strategies

• Regulatory considerations

Resource: link

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