Middle East to Moon. Desert heat to farming land. Closed AI or open.
E3. Featuring Wayl, RedSea, Falcon and much more.
šš½ Thank you to all the new subscribers. Hope to share everything I discover in the tech and start-up space in the region.
Iraqi fintech Wayl raises $150,000 pre-Seed round
Iraqi stripe equivalent - payment aggregator and facilitator for small merchants and freelance contractual workers, offering a seamless platform.
Recently, Wayl formalised a strategic partnership with Visa during the Dubai FinTech Summit, signifying its commitment to revolutionising digital payments in Iraq. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) sets the stage for Wayl to become the first payment facilitator in Iraq, addressing the pressing need for digital payment solutions in the burgeoning e-commerce landscape. Read more.
Great to see start-up ecosystem growing in Iraq. More such stories are the way forward for the country to come out of the perennial under siege situation.
UAE launches $300 million Falcon Foundation to develop open-source AI
Despite the hype, AI is real and thereās going to be impact both in short and long term. While the use cases for now has been āfirst draft of anythingā and it will eventually become a sustainable, critical component of the final draft outcome.
Open sourcing has been a massive part of growth in software. Developers are able to contribute to code repositories and improve on each othersā idea. OpenAI, started out as an open source collaborative model now increasingly is becoming closed - profits and commercial interests are forcing that change I reckon.
The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a leading global scientific research centre and the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabiās Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), today announced the launch of the āFalcon Foundationā. The non-profit Falcon Foundation is dedicated to advancing the development of open-source generative AI models and building sustainable ecosystems around open-source projects that accelerate technology development. As a founding member, TII is committing to provide $300 million to fund these projects.
Featuring Tawaref - tech investment community with a nice twist.
Start-up success is more than investments - it requires operation and strategic support in forms that are now called accelerators, incubators etc.
Tawaref goes beyond just investment. They offer a comprehensive range of complementary services to support the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. As a part of their services, we provide startup advisory, legal consultancy, due diligence support, and facilitate introductions to potential strategic partners and investors.
š” Start-up spotlight
RedSea, reshaping the way crops are cultivated in water-scarce regions
A start-up that is borne out of sheer necessity and fits the region like a glove. Agritech is way too important to build a sustainable world, the kind of world we want to leave behind for generations to come having butchered it.
RedSea, one of my favourite startups, is aiming to do just that.
In the dry desert heat of the Middle East, plants are growing out of salt water. Mark Tester, Ryan Lefers, and Derya Baran have fused nature and technology to produce food in the harshest of environments.
Dubai to Moon: First work of art to make a moon landing
Sacha Jafri, Dubai-based British Artist was enlisted by NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) to put his artwork, āWe Rise Togetherāwith the Light of the Moon, on the moon. Nearly two years later, Jafriās moon-landed artwork is on its way to the moon. Aboard the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Rocket, Jafriās painting was launched moonward at 2:18 a.m. EST on January 8, 2024.
The painting will be placed on the moon with the help of Selenian, a company that specializes in the curation of art in space, and Astrobotic, a commercial space company, in association with NASA under the CLPS initiative. Based on initial predictions from Astrobotic, the painting is expected to land on the moon on February 26, 2024. Letās hope tomorrow thereās a work of art in Moon - before a Chinese restaurant - that will be a first.
Rize to the challenge of issuing single cheques for rent in the region
š Very proud of the headline - when I moved to this region early last year, I found strange that rents were discussed as single cheque or two-cheque at best - itās a huge commitment for anyone to pay that no matter how prudent you are financially. Weekly rents in UK to yearly rents here - different markets have different ways of collecting rentals.
If you canāt change the course, then come up with an idea that finds an opportunity in the challenge.
Rize does exactly that. Rent now and pay later - a smart twist to BNPL *buy now pay later.
š¤ Next Edition: LEAP Watch
Looking forward to Leap in Riyadh next week. So much hype for this event and the first event since I moved to this part of the world that I am going to attend and very much looking forward to it.
If you are in the region itās worth a stopover. I am sure X will have enough updates. Else, subscribe to METS and next edition will be LEAP Special.