Middle East & North Africa

Funding into MENA startups has grown nearly tenfold over the past five years, reaching $5.8B in 2025. With $1.8B raised in the first 6 months of 2026, the full year is on track to land at $3.6B, a -38% change versus 2025. The chart below shows annual funding totals; the latest year is annualised from observed-to-date data and represents the renderer's projection, not a closed quarter.

Yearly totals mask the quarter-by-quarter rhythm. The chart below shows MENA startups funding raised in each of the last 21 complete quarters through Q2 2026. All bars are actual closed-quarter sums, no projections, no in-progress quarters.

MENA's share of global venture capital tracks how much of the world's startup capital lands in this market. In 2016, MENA startups accounted for 0.5% of global VC funding; by 2026 the share had reached 0.3%. The chart below splits each year's total global VC funding into MENA on the bottom and the rest of the market on top.

How capital deployed into MENA startups is split across round sizes. In the trailing four quarters, 54% of capital landed in scaleup ($100M+) rounds, 31% in breakout ($15–100M), and 15% across startups (under $15M). Each panel below stacks the canonical sub-bands across Q2 2022 → Q2 2026.

Two views of leadership in MENA startups: the most-funded companies all-time on the left, and the hottest companies right now by Dealroom Signal on the right. Total-funding figures include all capital sources tracked by Dealroom (VC plus grants, project finance, and other instruments). Signal is Dealroom's live growth ranking, these are the firms with the strongest recent momentum across team, timing, growth, and completeness.

How Middle East & North Africa stacks up against its global VC peers, with Middle East & North Africa highlighted. The chart ranks the top countries; alongside it, the leading Dubai metro region leads the city ranking with $2.1B. Use the metric pills, and the dropdown, to switch view.

Where MENA startups are based, each region shaded by its number of VC-backed startups. Darker means denser; hover a region for its count.

Over the last 12 months (through Jul 2026), the largest VC rounds in MENA startups reveal where capital is consolidating. The table below lists the 15 biggest disclosed rounds by amount, with date, company, round type, and lead investors. Funding events without a public amount are excluded; acquisitions sit in the Unicorns & Exits section.

Which industries pull in the most venture capital across MENA startups, and where does the MENA punch above its weight versus the rest of the world? Use the toggle to switch between absolute VC funding and each industry's over/under-index, and to change the time window. Over the last 12 months (to end of Q2 2026), Fintech leads at $1.5B, and the MENA over-indexes in Marketing, Fintech, Gaming, and under-indexes most in Security, Energy, AI relative to the rest of the world. Industries are tracked through Dealroom's industry tags, which overlap, a company spanning, say, AI and fintech is counted in both, so these show where capital concentrates, not a mutually exclusive split of the total.

MENA startups have minted 32 unicorns to date. Dealroom defines a unicorn as a company that has reached a $1B+ valuation or exit (verified and manually reviewed; other lists use different criteria, this is ours). Of those, 1 is a decacorn at a $10B+ valuation: noon. The ecosystem also counts 29 thoroughbreds: companies generating $100M+ in revenue (a separate lens from unicorns, with some overlap). The chart below shows the cumulative count climbing each year, with the line tracking new unicorns minted in that year, peaking at 8 in 2025. On exits, the sector has produced 207 tracked acquisitions since 2010 representing $18.6B in disclosed value. Notable acquisitions in the data include Careem ($3.1B, 2020), followed by Deribit ($2.9B, 2025), Network International ($2.8B, 2023).

Entrepreneurship is a power law. Of every MENA startup founded, only a fraction attract venture capital, and far fewer climb each successive funding level. This funnel traces VC-backed MENA startups from first cheque through to the rarest valuation outcomes. Mouth figures are annual means (2010–2024); pool stages count VC-backed companies founded since 1990 by total funding.

MENA's universities are an engine room of the region's startup economy: the schools whose alumni found the most unicorns and venture-backed companies, and the research that spins out into them.

The patent portfolio behind MENA startups: granted patent families, intensity per capita, and where the IP concentrates.

In-depth Dealroom research relevant to this guide.