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  • Forbes Middle East Reveals MENA’s Most Powerful Businesswomen

    The 2022 ranking features leaders from 19 different nationalities across 17 sectors. Emirati and Egyptian women dominate the ranking, with seven entries each, followed by Saudi, Moroccan, Kuwaiti, and Omani leaders, at four entries each. The top 10 leaders were an even split between list veterans and fresh faces. Amongst the top 10, Randa Muhammad Sadik, CEO of Arab Bank, made the most significant jump from 2021, rising from 14th to 7th position, as she assumed her role as chief in February 2022.

  • MENA’s largest solar panel factory opens in Tabuk to serve NEOM, TRSDC

    It is strategically located near the Kingdom’s giga projects in NEOM and the Red Sea, and the region also has plenty of qualified locals to work in the various jobs needed by the facility, Deputy Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Osama Al-Zamil said.

  • Startups aren’t just hip. They’re also the key to unlocking youth unemployment in MENA.

    There are an estimated 21,000 startups in MENA compared to the three thousand just four years ago, according to data analytics platform MAGNiTT. The actual figures could be higher when including early-stage companies.

  • What are the most in-demand skills among startups in MENA?

    Talent remains one of the biggest challenges facing startups in the Middle East. Good talent is difficult to find and can be very costly. Convincing someone to forgo the comfort and attractive compensations of the corporate world to build something with a young startup can turn out to be a headache at best, and a nightmare at worst. “Every single person [working for a startup] is like a unicorn,” says Roland Daher, chief executive officer a AstroLabs. “You work very hard to find them and then you work very hard to keep them and grow them. This is a problem that is common across startups.”

  • The EU’s Strategic Compass: Preparing to navigate MENA “with less US”

    Alarm bells over America’s undeniable shift to Asia have finally been rung in Brussels and other European capitals. European leaders understand that the U.S. is changing its engagement with the MENA region too. They expect that Washington will stay focused on Iran and will be there if potential conflicts and precarious situations draw in large, important regional countries such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

  • Fast-tracking Fintech: The Sector’s Evolution in MENA since 2018

    In order to contextualize Fintech’s growth within MENA’s venture capital ecosystem, we took a look at its share of total VC funding in the region from 2018 to 2021 YTD. As the chart below demonstrates, Fintech ventures have been accounting for a growing percentage of VC investments in MENA, albeit at a relatively slower rate. The UAE has seen the most rapid development in this space so far, as the country’s Fintech startups raised almost half of the all industry funding and closed 32% of all MENA Fintech deals by Q3 YTD 2021. KSA and Egypt, moving neck-to-neck, together account for over 40% of activity on both fronts.

  • The evolution of the food and beverage sector in MENA

    Companies that don’t have a strong footprint in the Middle East are missing a big opportunity for growth. That region will continue to evolve, and it will continue to grow. And of course, you have the population to support consumption.”

  • Iran’s drones are a buzzing menace for Saudi Arabia

    Over the years, footage of Houthi strikes and claims made by the group indicated that they acquired and used Iranian-made Sammad-2 and Sammad-3 drones, whose range exceeded hundreds of miles. Moreover, last January, satellite images suggested the deployment of Iranian Shahed-136 loitering suicide drones (with a range of 1,200 miles) in Yemen, thus, having the ability to cover the entire Arabian Peninsula and its surrounding seas.

  • SPACs gaining traction in MENA

    These flagship MENA SPACs include National Energy Services Reunited (NESR), which was the first energy-centric MENA SPAC to list on the Nasdaq more than three years before the 2020 SPAC boom. Thus, becoming the first company to successfully list several GCC companies from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE on the Nasdaq via a SPAC.

  • Saudi Agtech Startup Red Sea Farms Is On A Mission To Enable MENA Farms To Grow Crops Using Saltwater

    Established in 2018, the agtech startup uses its proprietary smart system involving solar and growth monitoring technologies to use saltwater to grow crops or reduce freshwater usage in irrigation and cool greenhouses, which also saves energy.