News

Mubadala-Backed Tabby Raises $200 Million In Funds

The latest series D funding round gives the BNPL platform a value of $1.5 billion.

Published

3 years ago

November 1, 2023

Nour Nasir

Tabby

Backed by UAE investment company Mubadala, Dubai-based Buy Now Pay Later platform Tabby has raised $200 million in funding, making it part of an elite group of MENA companies known as “unicorns” due to their market value of $1 billion or more.

Tabby, now valued at a staggering $1.5 billion, joins fellow UAE startups like Careem, Kitopi, and Swvl, along with Saudi Arabia’s STC Pay and Egypt’s Fawry.

اليوم، نعلن أن تابي أصبحت أول شركة ملياريّة في قطاع التقنية المالية في المنطقة، بعد أن أغلقت جولة استثمارية Series D بقيمة 200 مليون دولار وبتقييم 1.5 مليار دولار. كل الشكر لمجتمع تابي من المتسوّقين والشركاء على دعمهم المستمر. pic.twitter.com/YnuJdembCy

— Tabby | تابي (@paywithtabby) November 1, 2023

US-based Wellington Management was in charge of the latest funding round, with Hong Kong’s Blue Pool Capital and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Capital also taking part, with additional investment also coming from Saudi Arabia’s STV, PayPal Ventures and Arbor Ventures.

Tabby manages more than $6 billion worth of yearly transactions, and the new funding will be used to further develop the company’s financial and shopping services for both consumers and retailers.

“With this investment, we can advance our mission across Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” said Hosam Arab, CEO and co-founder of Tabby.

Also Read: MENA Online Electronics Sales Grew By 7% In 2023

The BNPL business model, which allows shoppers to spread payments for online purchases over several interest-free installments, has boomed since the COVID-19 pandemic and is projected to hit $565.8 billion by 2026, representing a compound annual growth rate of nearly 26%.

Tabby is currently active in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. In a January 2023 funding round, the company had already raised $58 million, valuing the BNPL provider at $660 million.

Meanwhile, plenty more BNPL providers are jostling for a share of the enormous MENA market, including the likes of Postpay, Cashew, Spotii, and Tamara. Only time will tell if Tabby’s rivals are also able to achieve coveted unicorn status, though the MENA region is expected to produce at least 45 billion-dollar startups by the end of the decade, led by Saudi Arabia.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.