Translated by: Fairouz Alnajem

May witnessed start-ups' funding decline in the Middle East and North Africa by about 40% compared to April, as the mentioned start-ups earned only $176 M, in return, the number of start-up transactions rose by 31% over the same period.

Geographical Distribution of Start-Ups' Deals in Size and Number

For the first time, Egyptian start-ups raised the largest funding in the Middle East and North Africa. Egyptian start-ups' funding amounted to about $81 M, as a result of 11 transactions held in May, this also placed it at the forefront of the region's start-ups for the number of transactions.

While Saudi and UAE start-ups were ranked second and third with $46 M and $45 M respectively. In the same order, Saudi and UAE companies came in the 9th and 8th respectively in the number of transactions.

The Egyptian startups' lead was influenced by the Paymob transactions, which successfully raised $50 million in a Series B funding round, which is a huge increase in the funding for this year's leading financial services company, with a 135% increase compared to last year.

The ranking of start-ups on the list of the most collectible funding companies for May was also influenced by the big transaction in which financial technology activist Hyperpay collected $36.7 M funding.

For the amount of funding received by Egyptian, Saudi and UAE start-ups, the total amount collected by startups in other countries is no more than $5 M! That is, its share of funding rate for May is about 3%. This obviously indicates the continuous concentration of funding for startups in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which is worth mention as it often creates the false impression of the average size of finance transactions. by excluding other countries' startups, the average transaction size is about $6 M, on the other hand, the average size of the transaction for startups, excluding Egyptian, Saudi and UAE companies, is about $ 360 K!

Sectoral distribution of size and number of startups' deals

The sectoral distribution was not far from the influence of the transactions collected by the aforementioned start-up. While the fintech sector came first with about $ 112 M as a result of 6 funding transactions, the most important of which was Paymob's transaction, which collected to the sector $ 50 M. The second was logistic services, with about $15.7 M followed by the mobility sector with about $12.6 M

Investment Stages in Start-Ups

Early-stage investment has captured about 28% of total start-up financing in May, with 10% increase compared to April. On the other hand, recent-stage investment witnessed a significant decline compared to the same period.

Distribution of transactions by gender

For the second month on row, female-and-male-run start-ups were able to obtain more than 12% of the total start-ups' funding transactions. However, male-run companies continued to dominate the start-ups fundings, reaping 87.4% of the total funding, compared to 0.04% for women-run companies.