Conversations round synthetic intelligence (AI) have moved past whether or not the know-how issues to how rapidly it may be developed and scaled. In 2025, this shift was mirrored in enterprise capital knowledge throughout the Center East and North Africa.
The area’s AI sector attracted $858 million in funding in 2025, accounting for 22% of whole enterprise capital deployed throughout MENA and almost double the quantity recorded the earlier yr, in line with the 2025 State of Enterprise Capital of AI in MENA report by MAGNiTT, a enterprise capital knowledge platform.
The 2025 figures mark a transition in how synthetic intelligence has develop into embedded in enterprise capital exercise throughout the area. Additionally they reveal a rising hole between the place AI capital is being deployed and the place startup exercise is rising, as funding concentrates in particular markets even whereas enterprise exercise spreads extra broadly.
The funding was raised throughout 194 offers, accounting for 29% of all enterprise offers within the area. Nonetheless, this surge in capital was not evenly distributed throughout markets.
North Africa’s visibility within the 2025 AI enterprise panorama comes primarily by means of deal exercise fairly than funding quantity.
Egypt recorded $73 million throughout 15 AI-related offers in 2025, representing eight per cent of the regional AI funding and an 88% year-on-year enhance in deal depend. In funding phrases, Egypt stays nicely behind the area’s dominant AI markets, led by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which collectively captured 87% of regional AI funding.
Nonetheless, the rise in deal counts indicators North Africa’s rising participation within the AI sector. It signifies that extra founders are constructing startups centred on AI purposes, with rising investor curiosity on the early stage, as pre-seed and seed AI offers elevated by 56% year-on-year.
This sample mirrors how AI enterprise exercise is unfolding throughout Africa extra broadly. Knowledge from the 2025 Africa Funding Report compiled by Briter Intelligence, a market intelligence and knowledge platform, reveals that AI-enabled corporations accounted for roughly 15% of all enterprise offers on the continent, which collectively raised $3.6 billion throughout greater than 600 offers.
The 2025 knowledge positions North Africa as an lively however largely early-stage participant within the area’s AI enterprise capital panorama. For now, its footprint is outlined extra by rising exercise than by capital focus.
This momentum is predicted to speed up as about 26% of the continent’s enterprise leaders on the continent plan to allocate greater than 20% of their funding budgets to AI over the following 12 months, almost double the worldwide common of 14%.
As extra corporations throughout the continent combine AI into their operations and product choices, this early-stage enterprise exercise might translate into bigger capital inflows within the years forward.
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