UAE’s Yozo.ai Secures $1.7 Million Pre-Seed for AI-Native E-commerce Growth
Dubai, UAE – January 28, 2026 – Yozo.ai, a UAE-based e-commerce AI startup, has successfully raised $1.7 million in pre-seed funding. This investment, co-led by Access Bridge Ventures and Disruptech Ventures, with participation from Arzan VC, Oraseya Capital, Plus VC, Suhail Ventures, Glint Ventures, and M-Empire Angels, will fuel the development of its AI-native revenue engine designed to automate growth and retention marketing for e-commerce merchants.
Founded in early 2025 by Salma AlBarkouky, Abdallah Moheb El-Din, Taha Salah, Hossam Ali, and Zeiad Haridy, Yozo.ai is building a sophisticated AI growth agent. This agent autonomously manages retention and conversion marketing efforts across critical channels such as email, WhatsApp, and SMS. The platform’s core innovation lies in its ability to connect directly to merchant sales channels, allowing for campaigns to be approved and then executed, tested, and optimized by the AI agent without requiring constant manual intervention.
Automating E-commerce Revenue Generation
Yozo.ai positions itself as a comprehensive AI-native revenue engine, directly addressing a significant gap in the e-commerce landscape: the disconnect between customer intent and completed purchases. By automating tasks traditionally handled by human growth and retention teams, the company aims to help merchants capture otherwise unrealized revenue. This is particularly critical in an environment where fragmented tools, manual execution, and limited internal team capacity often hinder effective lifecycle marketing.
Hossam Ali, Founder of Yozo.ai, emphasized this point, stating, “With Yozo, merchants don’t need a large growth team or complex stacks to run effective lifecycle marketing. Conversion and retention involve far more moving parts than most teams can realistically manage. Our agent is designed to handle that complexity autonomously.” This highlights the platform’s value proposition in simplifying and scaling marketing efforts.
Funding Allocation and Global Expansion
The newly secured capital will primarily be allocated towards accelerating product development and strengthening Yozo.ai’s engineering team. Furthermore, a significant portion of the funding will support the startup’s international expansion plans beyond the MENA region into global e-commerce markets. The strategic move aims to target areas where traditional growth teams face challenges with high costs, recruitment difficulties, or heavy reliance on manual processes.
Issa Aghabi of Access Bridge Ventures commented on the investment, noting that the team’s execution and practical adoption of AI were standout qualities. He further remarked that Yozo.ai is well-positioned to build a scalable platform seamlessly embedded into everyday e-commerce workflows, promising significant disruption in how merchants approach growth. As e-commerce increasingly demands efficiency and automation, Yozo.ai aims to establish itself as the default AI-driven growth layer for merchants globally.
Editor’s Note — The Startups MENA Team
At Startups MENA, we continuously track innovative solutions that are set to redefine core industries. Yozo.ai’s pre-seed funding is a compelling example of how AI is being strategically deployed to solve tangible business challenges in the e-commerce sector. This investment not only highlights the vibrant AI and e-commerce landscape within the UAE but also underscores the growing investor appetite for platforms that offer scalable, automated, and efficient growth solutions. Yozo.ai’s vision to empower merchants globally, starting from the MENA region, positions it as a significant player to watch.
— The Startups MENA Editorial Team
