Dubai’s tech ecosystem keeps thriving along with its innovative startups as they receive significant investments to actualize their ambitious growth plans. This week saw funding secured by two groundbreaking companies – Teammates.ai and Pluto – to enhance their offerings and extend their market reach. These two success stories bear testimony to the growing role of AI-driven solutions in reforming industries across the UAE and beyond.  

Weekly Dubai Funding Roundup 20th 25th Jan 2025

PC: Universities Fund

Teammates.ai, Launches AI Team Expansion Fund  

Based in Dubai, Teammates.ai is an AI solutions provider that has successfully closed a funding round that attracted the interest of different investors, most notably the Silicon Valley Hustle Fund, Access Bridge Ventures, Oraseya Capital, Beyond Capital, and global angel investors.  

Founded in 2023 by Emad Ayyad and Kareem Ayyad, Teammates.ai is airing the floor with its AI workmates who can make themselves useful in completing customer support and email tasks in over 50 languages. The company is also quite simply reinventing the “AI workforce” sector with autonomous AI teammates.  

Headquartered in Dubai, with offices in Saudi Arabia and in the U.S., Teammates.ai is well-placed to serve enterprises across the world. While the funding amount and round details have not been fully disclosed, it provides the company with a chance to release its latest product – an AI-powered Teammate that has been designed specifically for inside sales.  

This product is poised to put the company on an accelerated path towards execution of the process of business transformation through AI-enabling productivity and scalability enhancement that is key for enterprises. 

Pluto Raises $4.1 Million to Revolutionize Expense Management  

The first pre-Series A funding round for Pluto, the leading corporate card and expense management platform in the UAE, has been successfully concluded for $4.1 million. The funding was backed by major venture capital firms, including Rhino Ventures, Born Capital, Goanna Capital, Evolution VC, Freesearch VC, and Tiferes VC. These firms are investors in many globally renowned firms, like Ramp, Brex, and Figma.  

By Mohammed Ridwan, Mohammed Aziz, and Nayeem Zen, Pluto was launched in 2021 and has since gained GTM record speed with SMEs and enterprises in the UAE. Its platform has many features driven by artificial intelligence, such as dynamic budget tracking, corporate cards with cashback programs, petty cash management, procurement, invoicing, and vendor management.  

This fundraise occurred along with the launch of Pluto Connect, a premium product, envisaged to empower banks and financial institutions. This is the two-fold integration of corporate cards and expense management, with modern banking solutions enabling Pluto to enhance the financial ecosystem for SMEs, thereby benefiting over 30,000 businesses in collaboration with leading global banks.  

The continued funding would further support Pluto’s expansions into fresh markets, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, while enabling a completely automated accounts payable management platform to build.  

Some recent funding announcements underscore Dubai as a growing hub of AI innovation and fintech excellence. The commitment made by Teammates.ai to build autonomous AI teammates and Pluto’s revolutionary expense management solutions indicate the city’s growing hand in the global drive towards technology.  

The reaffirmation of Dubai as a capital of cutting-edge startups will bring both new investments in these two companies to commercial scale together with other advanced products.