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Dubai-Based Startup Alfii Raises $2.5 Million In Seed Funding
The significant investment will be used to build new engineering solutions for the company’s FinTech-powered human resource automation platform.
After launching in November 2022, Dubai-based startup Alfii has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding as the company seeks to expand its team and develop its product offering.
Alfii is a cloud-based HR automation platform where users can set up a company profile, invite employees, and begin managing documents, employee data, payroll, and more.
The latest funding round was overseen by US-based venture capital company Preface Ventures, as well as Dubai-based Aditum Ventures, Kayan Ventures, and Wayfinders.
“With Alfii’s all-in-one software suite, companies will be able to better understand and manage their human capital resources while improving the user experience for employees with features like digital-to-cash remittances, benefits selection,” says Farooq Abbasi, general partner of Preface Ventures.
With funding now secured, Alfii plans to build a suite of payroll features to provide users with “smarter, faster ways to manage payroll and salary disbursements, drastically simplifying a process that is typically tedious and time-consuming for HR owners,” the company explained.
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“We are looking to build the next generation of this product class, and we are building it entirely in-house – which means we need to bring on world-class talent to grow our business and better serve our customers,” added Yousef Albarqawi, Alfii co-founder and chief executive.
The tech startup plans to gradually introduce a whole suite of new features for HR processes, including onboarding, time-tracking, and leave management. Eventually, the Alfii platform will cover the entire employee life cycle.
Since its launch, more than 250 businesses have signed up to Alfii in the MENA region. Customers are currently spread across countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with the UAE comprising the bulk of the customer base.
News
Trip.com Is Betting An AI Agent Will Book Your Next Vacation
Abu Dhabi, Jazeera Airways and a run of hotel deals give the company more inventory. Its Mastercard demo says the most about where booking technology is headed.
Most of what Trip.com Group announced at Arabian Travel Market 2026 this week reads like the standard expansion playbook of an online travel agency: a new agreement with a tourism board, a run of hotel partnerships, an airline deal. However, one item was considerably more interesting: a demonstration built with Mastercard of an AI agent that doesn’t just suggest trips but also pays for them.
The showcase put TripGenie, the company’s AI travel assistant, to work searching, selecting and completing purchases inside a single booking flow, with Mastercard’s Agent Suite for Merchants handling the payment step and Network International processing the transactions on the merchant side. It’s limited for now to attractions and ancillary services, but the partners plan a phased commercial rollout from early 2027.
“As traveller expectations change, technology and AI will play an increasingly important role in how people plan their journeys,” says Schubert Lou, CEO of Trip.com.
Meanwhile, in more conventional news, CEO Lou and Saleh Mohamed Al Geziry (Director General for Tourism at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi), signed an agreement building on the two organizations’ existing partnership, with joint marketing and Abu Dhabi destination content to be pushed across Trip.com Group’s platforms.
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On accommodation, the group expanded its partnerships with JA Hotels & Resorts, Ishraq Hospitality and Aleph Hospitality and deepened its work with Silkhaus, which brings vacation homes into a portfolio that has so far leaned on hotels. Jazeera Airways signed a strategic partnership intended to widen the Kuwaiti carrier’s reach and encourage earlier bookings, tied to Kuwait’s own tourism ambitions.
The company moved into a larger Dubai office earlier this year and describes its long-term aim as a two-way ecosystem: sending Middle East travelers abroad while drawing international visitors in.
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