Introduction

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has known a remarkable rise in venture capital activity in the last three years, fostered by a young and tech-savvy population, a large potential market, strong government support, and strengthening links with the rest of the world. MENA is home to over 5k+ funded startups which raised $6.8B of VC investment in 2022. The MENA region is also home to 15+ unicorns including household names such as Telegram and Getir amongst others. Geographical definitions For the purpose of this guide, the MENA region includes: Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Türkiye, United Arab Emirates, Yemen. Azerbaijan, Libya, Oman, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are considered low VC activity regions, hence details of their respective VC investment is not provided. Israel is not included as part of the MENA region. Venture capital investment into MENA exploded in 2021 and 2022, launching the region into a higher echelon. While investment fell by 10% between 2021 and 2022, amid a global pullback in venture capital, this drop was much less pronounced than global VC (-31%). Explore all 7K+ funding rounds into MENA here on the platform. The share of MENA in the Middle East and Africa overall is at its highest in the last 10 years. It has grown 1.8x since 2020, while the combined share of Israel and the rest of Africa has decreased in the last two years.

By stage

Early stage Access early-stage funding rounds into MENA startups here on the platform. Breakout stage Access breakout-stage funding rounds into MENA startups here on the platform. Scaleup stage Access scaleup-stage funding rounds into MENA startups here on the platform.

By country

Compare country startup ecosystems within the MENA region and globally here on the app.  

By city

Compare city level startup ecosystems within MENA and overseas, here on the platform.

By industry

Food and Fintech have been the most prominent funding categories in MENA since 2020, over-indexing compared to the global average. Explore funding rounds into MENA by industry here on the Dealroom platform. Discover below the top industries in MENA in 2024 and in recent years.

By industry segments

See below the most funded segments in 2024 and in recent years.

Investors

Explore the data for the most active investors into the MENA startup ecosystem as well as the most active MENA investors here on the Dealroom platform.

Patents

Combined with other innovation data, patent intelligence add an entirely different perspective to innovation mapping, with a different set of industry players and longer time horizons.

Superclass patents

Below are the top categories by the number of patents granted and pending in 2021 per superclass and subclass by companies based in the MENA region. Since 2000 the fastest-growing areas of innovation and patent filing in the MENA region have included Spectrometry sensors, Ultrasound sensors, and Robotics.

Subclass patents

Top countries by patent filing

More patents were filed in Saudi Arabia over the past decade than in all other MENA countries combined.

Spotlight: Healthtech in MENA

The remarkable growth of MENA's healthcare sector over the previous decade, fueled by both public and private finance, has firmly established the region’s healthcare as a worldwide player. Healthtech investment in the MENA region is just getting started, with records being set since 2020.

VC industry segmentation

VC investment is particularly active in telemedicine and biotech & pharma.

By country

The United Arab Emirates is the Healthtech hub of MENA, followed by Türkiye and Egypt.

Related content

Report: Explore all our MENA focused reports Report: Compare MENA based startup ecosystems against other global ecosystems in our Benchmarking Report Dealroom Data: Explore 90k+ funded startups headquartered in MENA. Taxonomy: To learn how Dealroom defines its entities, taxonomy, filters and more, click here