Abu Dhabi-headquartered Fuze, a digital assets infrastructure provider, has unveiled a substantial Seed round of $14mn, which they claim is the largest Seed investment in a digital assets startup in the the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). A first-of-its-kind infrastructure provider in MENA, Fuze enables any bank, fintech or traditional enterprise to easily offer regulated digital assets products to their customers through their native apps.
The investment was led by Abu Dhabi-based Further Ventures, along with participation by US-based Liberty City Ventures. Fuze will benefit from the strategic capital and network of these investors, acting as a catalyst for the business as it builds the digital asset infrastructure that will drive the future of finance.
Fuze was founded by an expert team of fintech, traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) leaders, with its co-founders holding extensive knowledge from experience in global hypergrowth businesses: the CEO, Mohammed Ali Yusuf (Mo Ali Yusuf) has held prominent roles at Checkout.com and Visa; Arpit Mehta (COO) was previously in the leadership team at fintech leaders like Simpl and Clear; Srijan Shetty (CTO) built algorithmic trading systems at Goldman Sachs and worked at tech leader Microsoft.
With a regional digital asset market worth $566bn, and growing at 48% YoY, Fuze co-founder and CEO, Mohammed Ali Yusuf believes the Middle East is the perfect home to establish a digital assets infrastructure business,
“We are excited to build the future of regulated financial infrastructure and digital assets out of the UAE. Regulations have played a pivotal role in propelling the UAE into a central position within the global Digital Assets industry. To receive the backing of Abu Dhabi-headquartered Further Ventures combined with the deep expertise of US-based Liberty City Ventures, confirms the relevancy and potential of Fuze’s mission to rapidly expand our cutting-edge infrastructure across the region.”
Fuze was founded in December 2022 and selected earlier this year to join Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem through its Company Building Program. Its white label solutions handle the complexities of blockchain and regulatory overheads for enterprises, enabling these organizations to readily offer digital assets such as stablecoins, cryptocurrencies, CBDCs and tokenized assets.
The funding will propel Fuze’s growth as it obtains regulatory licensing, adds strategic hires in key roles, continues to expand its technological capabilities, and accelerates its geographic expansion across the region. Its products, such as Fuze Trader and Fuze Loyalty, allow banks, brokerages and superapps to offer digital asset products in a simple, easy and trusted manner.
