Week 16's Biggest Startup Funding Rounds in Africa and the Middle East, Led by Aya and Capsule Security

Startups across Africa and the Middle East raised a combined $27.4 million in disclosed rounds during Week 16, Techloy reported, with investor capital flowing into fashion tech, cybersecurity, clean energy, and healthtech. Early-stage deals dominated the week’s activity, with notable rounds in Saudi Arabia, Israel, South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Qatar. The largest single rounds were led by Saudi fashion e‑commerce player Aya and Israeli cybersecurity newcomer Capsule Security, each securing $7 million.

"Aya is a Saudi e‑commerce platform that tests over 700 clothing designs each month and only moves into production on the ones customers actually respond to, cutting out the waste that most traditional fashion brands build into their process."

The week's largest disclosed rounds

• Aya — $7 million (SAR 26 million), Fashion E‑commerce, Saudi Arabia: Series A led by RAED Ventures and joined by Nuwa Capital, Sanabil Investments, Joa Capital, and Khwarizmi Ventures. The capital will expand Aya into new product categories and scale its customer‑driven production model across broader fashion and lifestyle segments.
• Capsule Security — $7 million, Cybersecurity, Israel: Seed round for the Tel Aviv startup founded in 2025 by Naor Paz and Lidan Hazout. Capsule Security "monitors AI agents as they operate within company systems in real time and steps in when they begin acting outside approved limits, leaking sensitive data, or being manipulated by external inputs." The round was led by Lama Partners and Forgepoint Capital International and will fund hiring and enterprise go‑to‑market efforts.
• Refiant — $5 million, AI & Clean Tech, South Africa: Seed funding from VoLo Earth Ventures. Refiant uses nature‑inspired algorithms to compress large AI models so they can run on ordinary commercial hardware, cutting power consumption by more than 80% without major performance loss. Funds will expand the platform, grow engineering, and deepen enterprise partnerships.
• AI Diagnostics — R85 million ($4.7 million), Healthtech, South Africa: Pre‑Series A from The Steele Foundation for Hope, the iFSP Group, the Global Innovation Fund, Africa Health Ventures, and Savant. AI Diagnostics makes the Ostium, an AI‑powered digital stethoscope for TB screening; funding will support clinical research, hardware development and scaling across sub‑Saharan Africa and parts of Asia.
• Jozo — $2.21 million (SAR 8.3 million), Proptech, Saudi Arabia: Seed round with strategic partnership from Sheikh Hamad Bin Saedan Real Estate Co. Founded in 2024 by Turki Al‑Shlail and Fahad Almansour, Jozo tokenised the country’s first private‑sector real estate deed and will use proceeds to build technology and scale nationally.
• INVIA — $1.2 million, Fintech, Egypt: Founded in 2023 by Yehia Ashour, Ahmed Zeinhom and Omar Aboulmagd, the platform consolidates bookkeeping, cash‑flow, inventory and manufacturing management for SMEs. Angel and strategic backers will help product development and SME adoption across Egypt.
• NectarFi — $170,000, Crypto & Fintech, Nigeria: Lagos‑based Solana app combining savings, spending, cross‑border transfers and trading. Early funding coincided with a public launch after onboarding more than 1,000 users across Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil and Argentina during private testing.
• Sufra AI — $100,000, Food Tech, Qatar: Doha startup founded by Carnegie Mellon Qatar graduates Ekaterina Demenkova and Jemal Velihanova. Pre‑seed from Snoonu under its Startup Factory initiative; the QR‑based smart menu aims to lift average order values by 20–30% while providing ordering, payments and analytics to restaurants.

Other announced moves included undisclosed investments in PowerLabs — an AI‑powered energy management startup backed by Breega, Catalyst Fund, Mercy Corps Ventures and Kaleo Ventures — and a strategic investment in Saudi fintech AVA from Plug and Play Middle East. With early‑stage rounds dominating and capital flowing into a range of sectors from fashion to cybersecurity and clean tech, investors appear to be broadening their bets across the region rather than concentrating on a single theme. The coming quarters will test how quickly these startups can translate seed and Series A capital into customer traction and regional scale.