Two key startups in the Gulf region led the funding activity in the last week of May even as overall deal volumes subsided compared to the previous week. While fintech startup Tabby secured additional debt financing, the UAE-based logistics firm Cargoz raised bridge funding to expand into a newer market.
Meanwhile, dealmaking volume in May picked up compared to April. Key deals during the month include the acquisition of cloud service provider Adfolks by ZainTech, the digital services arm of Kuwaiti telecom giant Zain Group, besides fundraises by the UAE-based fintech startup Twig, direct-to-customer ecommerce brand Squatwolf, business-to-business ecommerce player Eighty6, superapp Snoonu, and fintech player Tarabut Gateway.
The UAE-based buy-now-pay later startup Tabby increased its debt facility to $350 million to fuel its growth plans. It closed a new financing round led by US-based Partners for Growth (PFG), along with Atalaya Capital Management, and CoVenture.
The payments and shopping app, founded in 2019 by Hosam Arab, offers BNPL facility to shoppers to shop online and offline. It has four million customers and 15,000 retailers as clients across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
The fresh debt raising comes nearly 10 months after it raised $150 million in debt financing from Atalaya Capital and PFG, and follows the $58-million Series C fund raise in January at a valuation of $660 million.
Cargoz
Logistics startup Cargoz has secured an undisclosed amount in a bridge funding round from Nama Ventures, RAZ Group and angel investors from the UAE and Saudi Arabia to facilitate business expansion.
Founded in Dubai in 2022 by Premlal Pullisserry and Lijo Antony, Cargoz connects small and medium enterprises looking for warehousing space with warehousing companies that have extra capacity. The latest funding is aimed to support its growth in the UAE and facilitate its soft launch in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh by the third quarter of 2023.
