News

UBQT Closes Pre-Seed Funding, Welcomes IQ Sayed As CTO

The Dubai-based AI-powered social app has secured $750,000 in investments and is now set to expand its feature set and user base.

Published

2 years ago

February 26, 2025

Nour Nasir

ubqt closes pre-seed funding and welcomes i.q. sayed as cto

UBQT (pronounced Ubiquity), a UAE-based AI-powered social app designed to bring people together in real life, has successfully closed its pre-seed funding round. After securing $750,000 in investments, the company will now be able to expand operations, begin new feature development, and help grow its user base.

Since its launch in January 2024, UBQT has quickly grown in popularity, amassing nearly 5,000 organic downloads and forging key partnerships with the likes of GITEX, Step Conference Dubai, The Offline Club, and Emotion Network in Milan. With fresh funding in hand, the company remains focused on its mission: helping people reduce their screen time and build more meaningful, real-world connections.

ubqt new cto i.q. sayed

UBQT has also welcomed IQ Sayed as its third co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. A seasoned technologist with an impressive track record at Meta and Careem, Sayed brings invaluable expertise in scaling digital products and will soon become the driving force in UBQT’s next phase of expansion as it sets out to disrupt traditional social networking models.

“We are absolutely thrilled to close this funding round and to have IQ join us,” said Jonathan Hasson, Co-Founder of UBQT. “This is just the beginning. With the new funding and IQ on board, we’re ready to build an even better platform that champions meaningful, real-world interactions. We’re also looking ahead to our upcoming Seed round this spring, which will enable us to scale further and enhance the user experience”.

Also Read: Foodics Acquires Online-Ordering Specialist & Invests In 3 Startups

With Sayed on board, UBQT enters an exciting new chapter. The powerhouse team will soon begin to enhance the platform’s technological capabilities, scale its user base, and solidify UBQT’s position in the consumer tech space.

Learn more about UBQT on their website and download the app which is available for both Android and iOS.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 days ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.