Six MENA Startups Building AI Infrastructure Instead of AI Apps

The MENA region is no longer just adopting artificial intelligence—it is actively building the foundation to power it, led by a wave of new startups.

Instead of merely building consumer-facing apps or relying on OpenAI and Google middleware, these companies are constructing the critical, behind-the-scenes infrastructure—from specialized Arabic Large Language Models (LLMs) and secure financial operating systems to massive state-backed GPU data centres. These platforms are bridging the gap between raw data and enterprise automation, ensuring that the region's AI revolution is secure, tailored to local languages, and built to scale globally.

From high-growth Emirati and Saudi startups backed by heavyweights like a16z and Prosus Ventures, to landmark state-driven ecosystems, here are six major players shaping the future of AI infrastructure in the MENA region.

Arabic.AI (UAE)

Founders: Nour Al Hassan (CEO)

Last Funding Round: $15 million Series A Round led by Global Ventures.

Arabic.AI is an AI operating layer and sovereign Large Language Model (LLM) built specifically for enterprises and governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Created in 2025, it is the latest pivot of company Tarjama, which has been pioneering language solutions in the region since 2008.

In May 2025, Tarjama announced a $15 million Series A funding round to accelerate the rollout of Arabic.AI and continue building the footprint Arabic AI needs across markets including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the United States.

Nanovate (Egypt)

Founders: Ahmed Gamal (CEO) and Nancy Madbouly (CTO)

Last Funding Round: $1 million pre-seed funding round in October 2025 led by angel investors.

Founded in early 2025, Cairo-based startup Nanovate is making sure that the AI revolution doesn’t just happen in English, but Arabic as well. By developing end-to-end Arabic AI solutions, including chat and voice agents, automation systems, and a beta dashboard for no-code Arabic AI deployment, Nanovate’s products can act as a core infrastructure layer for regional enterprise automation.

In October 2025, the founders raised $1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by a group of angel investors.

Skipr Technologies (UAE)

Founders: Andreas Hartl (CEO), Adnan Fatayerji (CSO), and Weynand Kuijpers (CTO)

Last Funding Round: $2 million seed round in February 2026.

As AI technologies grow, innovation becomes not just about building better models, but about how these systems talk to each other across clouds, organizations and borders. In response, Emirati startup Skipr Technologies is building what they call an "autonomous trust fabric” that uses cryptographic identity and policy-driven routing to allow AI systems such as government or private bank LLMs to securely communicate without breaching data sovereignty or national borders.

Based at Abu Dhabi’s Hub71, Skipr closed a $2 million seed round with a valuation of $10 million in February 2026.

Stitch (Saudi Arabia)

Founders: Mohamed Oueida (CEO)

Last Funding Round: $25 Million Series A led by a16z.

Founded in 2022 by CEO Mohamed Oueida, Saudi-based Stitch is a fintech startup that builds a cloud-native operating system and unified system of record for financial institutions. While it sits at the intersection of fintech, what it is creating is fundamentally an AI enablement infrastructure helping to unlock the AI transformation for financial institutions in the region. Their platform, which encompasses lending, cards, payments and ledgers can be adopted module by module, without needing to rip out existing infrastructure overnight.

Qeen.ai (UAE)

Founders: Morteza Ibrahimi (CEO), Ahmad Khwileh (CTO), and Dina Alsamhan (CBO)

Last Funding Round: $10 million seed funding round in February 2025 led by Prosus Ventures.

Rather than building consumer-facing applications, UAE-based Qeen.ai creates AI middleware—the "behind-the-scenes" technology that helps companies handle their data and AI automatically, essentially acting as an automated optimization layer for companies that can't afford to manually engineer and maintain complex machine learning pipelines.

Headquartered in Dubai, Qeen.ai was founded in 2023 by former Google and DeepMind colleagues Morteza Ibrahimi, Ahmad Khwileh, and Dina Alsamhan, and recently raised $10 million in a seed funding round led by Prosus Ventures in February 2025.

HUMAIN (Saudi Arabia)

Founded: 2025

CEO: Tareq Amin

Last Investment: Acquired $3 billion Series E minority stake in xAI

While it is not a traditional startup but rather a state-backed entity by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, HUMAIN is delivering full-stack artificial intelligence capabilities globally as well as regionally. Launched in 2025 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and headed by CEO Tareq Amin, a Jordanian-American technologist with two decades of experience in the industry, the enterprise was created to drive the Kingdom's national AI strategy and build a comprehensive, full-stack AI ecosystem. It recently became a significant minority shareholder in xAI, the company behind Grok, and has also partnered with NVIDIA to build "AI factories" with up to 500 megawatts of capacity and hundreds of thousands of advanced Blackwell GPUs.