YC alum Cercli, an AI-powered Rippling for MENA, raises oversubscribed $12M Series A

In a region long defined by fragmented enterprise systems, outdated compliance tools, and HR software that rarely talks to finance, Cercli is building a unified alternative for MENA businesses with AI at its core. The Dubai-based startup, founded by ex-Careem operators Akeed Azmi and David Reche, has announced an oversubscribed $12 million Series A round led by…

Read More

AI-powered fintech Alaan raises $48M, one of the largest Series A rounds in MENA

When Parthi Duraisamy was a consultant at McKinsey’s Dubai office, he discovered that the American Express cards his company relied on for corporate expenses were rarely accepted in the Middle East. This forced Duraisamy to cover significant travel expenses out of pocket and file endless expense reports. “It was a constant pain,” Duraisamy explained on…

Read More

Numeric grabs $28M Series A to automate accounting using AI

Accountants typically dread month-end and quarter-end closings. That’s because finalizing financial records for a specific period is generally a manual, error-prone and time-consuming endeavor.  In 2020, Parker Gilbert (pictured above; middle) was so fed up with the tedium of managing finance and accounting at an early-stage startup that he decided to co-found Numeric, an accounting…

Read More

Series, a GenAI game development platform, has quietly raised $28M from Netflix, Dell, a16z, others

It’s been quite the year for gaming industry exec Pany Haritatos.  Last month, he quietly closed an oversubscribed $28 million Series A for his new game studio startup Series Entertainment, according to an SEC document and confirmation from the company. Investors include Netflix, Dell Technologies Capital, with follow-on investments from seed investors Andreessen Horowitz, BITKRAFT,…

Read More

Anysphere, a GitHub Copilot rival, has raised $60M Series A at  $400M valuation from a16z, Thrive, sources say

Anysphere, a two-year-old startup that’s developed an AI-powered coding assistant called Cursor, has raised over $60 million in a Series A financing at a $400 million post-money valuation, two sources familiar with the deal told TechCrunch.  The round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital. Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, also participated…

Read More