News

Pyypl Growth To Accelerate After $20 Million Investment

The Abu Dhabi-based financial platform continues to go from strength to strength, with sights set on a huge regional expansion.

Published

4 years ago

November 7, 2022

Nour Nasir

pyypl growth to accelerate after $20 million investment

Pyypl (pronounced “people”), the Middle East and Africa-focused financial services platform, has just secured $20 million in Series B funding from international investors, as well as ten of its existing backers.

Since being founded in 2017, the Hub71 member has raised nearly $40 million in investment capital. This recent financing round will help the platform increase its reach even deeper into the MEA region.

As the company develops what’s known as “Pyypl 2.0”, new features and proprietary technology will also be built to enhance user experience and help scale in new markets and business verticals. Pyypl is led by a skilled management team with a proven track record and is now one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in the region, quadrupling its user base and transaction volumes in just 12 months.

Pyypl has established key partnerships since its foundation, and now boasts a mature and expansive financial ecosystem that includes Visa, several payment gateway partners, Ripple, and Binance. Based in Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem, Pyypl also gains access to a wide-ranging network of partners and benefits from a strong local talent base.

Also Read: Paymob Announces New UAE Regional Hub

The combination of proprietary technology, an experienced management team, and a unique multi-product approach is paying dividends for the startup, which seems to have been founded at the exact right time to benefit from the region’s growing tech landscape. The ecosystem boasts “internationally accepted virtual and physical prepaid cards, instant domestic and international user-to-user transfers as well as remittances to 38 currency destinations”, with plenty of additional features being added to the roadmap.

“We welcome our new investors and appreciate the further investment from our existing shareholders to support our financial inclusion journey. We have grown significantly since our Series A round and are excited to enter the next phase of growth and capability. This is just the beginning,” says Antti Arponen, co-founder and CEO at Pyypl.

Pyypl’s platform offers key financial services via a single app, and could benefit up to 800 million financially underserved smartphone users across Africa and the Middle East.

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.