The escalation in the Middle East is sending shockwaves through global commodity and energy markets, with steel, aluminum, helium, fertilisers, oil, and gas prices all reacting to disrupted trade routes and growing uncertainty. The ripple effects are being felt far beyond the region, reshaping supply chains, investor sentiment, and energy security strategies across continents.

Meanwhile, MENA's private equity momentum faces a serious test as cross-border appetite may cool amid heightened geopolitical risk, a setback after years of record-breaking capital deployment. On the brighter side, Nordic tech keeps breaking records, and fresh funding rounds across fintech, AI, and deep tech signal that innovation isn't slowing down, if anything, it's accelerating as founders and investors double down on transformative technologies.

Here's what stood out to us this month, read on.

MENA private equity surged to a record $22.2 billion in 2025, climbing 28.3% compared to the previous year, with 199 deals closed — making it one of the region's strongest years on record. Cross-border activity drove close to 70% of total deal value, reflecting the region's rising attractiveness to global investors drawn by diversification plays, government-backed megaprojects, and a rapidly maturing startup landscape. Yet, as the Iran conflict intensifies and regional stability comes under pressure, the very engine behind this growth — foreign capital — risks stalling amid mounting geopolitical uncertainty. The momentum that positioned MENA as one of the world's fastest-growing PE markets now faces a serious test.

Cross-border transactions made up nearly 70% of all PE deal value in the region in 2025, the highest proportion since 2016. Foreign investors deployed approximately $16.8 billion across 112 deals last year.

Despite clear signs of growing appetite for the asset class, the lingering uncertainty around the duration of the war in Iran could lead to cancellations as investors take a "wait and see" stance.

UAE-based Shorooq has joined the $1.03 billion seed round of AMI Labs, the AI company founded by renowned AI researcher Yann LeCun. Co-led by Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, and Bessemer Venture Partners, the round values AMI Labs at $3.5B pre-money, making it one of the largest seed rounds in AI history and a landmark moment for the global AI ecosystem.

The startup is building next-generation "world model" AI for manufacturing, robotics, aerospace, and biomedical applications, aiming to push artificial intelligence beyond language into physical-world reasoning, spatial understanding, and autonomous planning. Shorooq's participation underscores the growing role of MENA-based investors in backing frontier AI companies on the global stage.

Saudi fintech Muhlah has raised $7.5M in a seed round led by BIM Ventures and Japan's SBI Group, bringing together regional and international backers for its next phase of growth. Founded in 2024, the company provides Shariah-compliant consumer microfinance solutions with a strong focus on transparency, responsible lending, and credit discipline — filling a gap in the market for accessible, ethical consumer financing.

Saudi rapid-delivery startup Ninja is testing investor appetite for a potential IPO in Riyadh, after reporting $1 billion in revenue in 2025 with projections of $1.6 billion in 2026.

The company previously raised $250 million at a $1.5 billion valuation and could target a valuation above $5.6 billion if it proceeds with a public listing.

European venture is converging on four high-conviction themes heading into 2026, each with strong tailwinds from both policy support and surging market demand:

- Deep tech — McKinsey estimates up to $1 trillion in enterprise value by 2030. The European Innovation Council is deploying $1.5B this year to back frontier research and commercialization across quantum computing, space technology, and advanced materials — areas where Europe has strong academic talent and growing commercial ambitions.

- Health & biotech — AI is fundamentally transforming healthcare: 22% of organizations now use domain-specific AI tools, a 7x jump year-on-year, with 85% of generative AI spend flowing to startups rather than incumbents. The convergence of AI and life sciences is driving unprecedented investor interest and accelerating drug discovery, diagnostics, and personalized medicine.

- Defense tech — With major European defense budgets announced and NATO members ramping up commitments in response to geopolitical instability, 2026 is expected to bring a wave of government contracts to defense and dual-use startups across the continent, from drones and cybersecurity to satellite communications.

- Cybersecurity — Global funding reached $18B in 2025, the strongest level in three years, driven by AI-powered rounds and renewed early-stage activity as organizations scramble to secure increasingly complex digital infrastructure against a rising tide of sophisticated threats.

Sources: IFC Global Private Capital Investors Survey 2025, CBInsights State of Venture, The Recursive Investment Trends 2026, OECD Venture Capital in AI through 2025

Norway has revealed a massive rare earth metal deposit of over 15.9 million tonnes — Europe's largest known reserve and a potential game-changer for the continent's industrial strategy. Production is expected to begin in 2031 and could eventually cover around 5% of EU demand, supporting the bloc's push for strategic mineral independence and significantly reducing its reliance on imports from China, which currently dominates over 60% of global rare earth supply chains. The discovery is being hailed as a milestone in Europe's effort to secure the critical materials needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and advanced electronics manufacturing.

Swedish AI startup Lovable grew its ARR from $300M to $400M in a single month, a pace of growth that few software companies in history have ever achieved, and is now setting its sights on $1B ARR by year-end. The company is expanding aggressively into the US market and hiring 200 new employees across engineering, sales, and operations to keep pace with surging demand for its AI-powered development tools. Lovable's trajectory has turned it into one of the most closely watched companies in the European tech ecosystem and a poster child for the Nordic AI boom.

Stockholm-based AI legal tech company Legora has raised $550M from Accel, Benchmark, Bessemer Venture Partners, and others in a major Series D round that cements its position as one of Europe's most valuable legal technology companies. The company is rapidly scaling in the US market, where adoption among law firms and corporate legal departments has outpaced expectations. "Over the past year, the rate of adaptation in the United States has exceeded our expectations," says Max Junestrand, highlighting the strong appetite among American legal professionals for AI-driven solutions that can streamline research, contract review, and compliance workflows.

Norrsken VC portfolio company Terralayr has raised $223 million in a financing round led by Eurazeo alongside existing shareholder RIVE Private Investment — one of the largest climate tech rounds in European history. The German company is scaling both its grid-scale battery energy storage (BESS) portfolio and its proprietary flexibility-as-a-service platform LAYR, which lets BESS owners and optimisers rent out or procure battery flexibility under tolling agreements by virtualising project capacity.

Major energy firms Vattenfall and RWE have already signed offtake deals on the platform. As AI-driven data center demand and the rapid rollout of renewables strain electricity grids across the continent, Terralayr's "Storage-as-a-Service" model aims to provide the essential storage layer needed to decouple Europe from fossil fuels and make battery storage a bankable infrastructure asset class.

Finnish quantum computing firm IQM Quantum Computers has announced plans to go public through a merger with a US-listed SPAC, marking a significant milestone for European quantum technology. The deal is expected to value the company at $1.8B and could deliver a $450M cash injection to fuel IQM's next phase of growth, including the expansion of its quantum hardware capabilities, talent acquisition, and deepening commercial partnerships across Europe and North America.

Goodfire, an Impact/100 2025 alumnus, has raised $150M at a $1.25B valuation to build "interpretable" AI — technology that lets users see exactly how AI reaches its conclusions and decisions. As organizations increasingly demand transparency and accountability in digital intelligence, Goodfire is betting that the next economy won't accept black-box models. The company believes that explainability will become a core requirement for enterprise AI adoption, particularly in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and government, where understanding the reasoning behind AI outputs is not just a preference but a compliance necessity.

Stockholm-based Truecaller has partnered with Cloudcom to bring its verified Business Chat service to Egyptian enterprises, opening up a new channel for trusted brand-to-consumer communication in one of the MENA region's largest markets. The platform enables rich media messaging with brand verification, interactive one-tap actions, and time-sensitive alerts — moving business communication beyond traditional SMS into a more engaging, trustworthy, and conversion-friendly channel. Truecaller reports over 450 million active users worldwide, making it one of the most widely used communication utilities globally and a powerful distribution platform for businesses looking to reach consumers directly.

French AI lab Mistral has raised $830 million in debt to construct a data center outside Paris, running on Nvidia chips, with operations expected to begin in Q2 2026. This follows a separate $1.4 billion commitment to infrastructure in Sweden, as the company pushes toward 200 megawatts of compute capacity across Europe by 2027. The underlying logic is straightforward: companies and governments are increasingly reluctant to run sensitive workloads on American cloud platforms they do not control.

Choosing the next market to enter or looking for the right partner in Europe or the Nordics?

We share our experience on building distributed teams in MENA and things to consider in each country.