MENA venture funds are sitting on $1.45B in dry powder. That is not the whole story
MENA-focused funds raised since 2024 carry $1.65B in target fund size, and 88% of it, an estimated $1.45B, has yet to reach a startup. That pool is real. A high undeployed share is not the same as an ecosystem with enough capital.
MAGNiTT identified 17 publicly identifiable MENA-focused funds raised since 2024, representing $1,647M in target fund size. Based on tracked investments, only 12%, had been deployed into startups by H1 2026, leaving an estimated $1,450M as dry powder.
Most of that undeployed share is a timing effect rather than a signal of caution. Venture funds deploy over five to seven years, with the heaviest activity in years one to four, which means recent vintages are expected to retain most of their capital. The 88% figure reflects how young these funds are as much as anything about the market.
Download the MENA Dry Powder Availability report for the full dataset.
Commitments rose faster than capital went out
Cumulative target fund size grew by $1,075M, from six funds in 2024 to 17 by H1 2026. Over the same period, tracked deployment grew by just $155M, reaching $197M by H1 2026. Deployment grew faster in proportional terms than fund targets, at 4.7 times against 2.9 times, which moved the dry-powder share from 93% in 2024 to 89% in 2025 and 88% by H1 2026. The largest vehicles sit near the top of that pool: BECO Booster Growth Fund I at $250M, Shorooq Partners' Late Stage Growth Fund at $200M and Jasoor Fund at $180M.
Half the pool sits in funds that have not made an investment
Six of the 17 funds have deployed nothing at all, and their combined target size of $825M is half the pool. The concentration runs to the top of the table: BECO Booster Growth Fund I at $250M, Shorooq Partners' Late Stage Growth Fund at $200M and Jasoor Fund at $180M are the three largest vehicles of the period, together 38% of all target fund size, and none has recorded a tracked investment.
At the other end, five of the sixteen funds with a disclosed target have put more than a quarter of it to work, led by VentureSouq MENA Fintech Fund II at 50% and Raed III LP at 47%, with Phaze Ventures Fund II at 38%, STV NICE Fund at 37% and Exel by Merak Gaming Fund at 27%. The pattern follows vintage rather than intent, with the 2024 funds furthest through their investment periods and the three 2026 vehicles, worth $370M between them, still holding all of it.
Where the capital has actually gone
Deployment has been both limited and concentrated. Saudi Arabia received the largest share of deployment across each fund vintage, while the UAE, Egypt, and other MENA markets captured smaller portions. This concentration matters because the headline pool is not evenly available to founders across the region. Access the full report for the complete deployment data.
Why $1.45B does not settle the question
A large undeployed pool gives existing managers capacity. It does not prove the ecosystem is well funded. Whether $1.45B is sufficient depends on how much capital startups will need, how fast managers deploy, and whether commitments sit where demand actually is. Even with 88% of target fund size remaining undeployed, founders may continue to face funding constraints if available capital is concentrated in stages or strategies that do not match market demand.
Timing is the other caveat. The $370M in target fund size announced across three funds in H1 2026 arrived despite the uncertainty created by the Israel-Iran conflict, and those closes likely reflect decisions taken before the conflict rather than evidence that fundraising was unaffected. Under MAGNiTT's assumed six-to-nine-month transmission lag, the effect on new commitments and deployment should become clearer in H2 2026 and into early 2027, leaving the resilience of future capital formation still to be tested.
Four of the 17 funds carry an explicit artificial intelligence mandate, which places a further part of the pool in a single thesis at a moment when AI and AI-Enabled companies together take half of all MENA venture funding.
The report maps the full pool fund by fund and country by country, with target fund size, capital deployed and dry-powder share for all 17 vehicles, alongside MAGNiTT's deployment-timing methodology.
Access the Dry Powder Report → Here.