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UAE-based digital assets infrastructure provider Fuze has raised $12.2 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to $20 million, as interest in the crypto market surges.

Latest funding round

The funding round was led by Galaxy, a New York-headquartered digital assets and data center infrastructure firm, and e& capital, the venture capital and investment arm of the technology group e&, and a few other investors.

The new funding will help support its regional and international expansion, accelerate product innovation and compliance, and support top-tier hiring.

Fuze was founded in 2023 by Mohammed Ali Yusuf, Arpit Mehta, and Srijan Shetty, who gained recognition as part of the Forbes Middle East 30 Under 30 Class of 2023.

It provides Digital Assets-as-a-Service (DAaaS) infrastructure, enabling banks, payment processors, fintech, and traditional businesses across MENA and Türkiye to offer regulated digital assets to their clients. It also has an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk that helps execute large-sized trading in digital assets.

Additionally, Fuze has launched a full suite of stablecoin infrastructure products and recently announced its expansion into payments through FuzePay.

Crypto demand

Demand from traditional institutions is rapidly growing, with many seeking compliant and scalable infrastructure to enter the space, Mo Ali Yusuf, CEO and co-founder of Fuze, told Forbes Middle East.

“We believe that in the next 12 months, every financial institution and business will leverage some type of crypto or stablecoin capability,” he added.

He further explained that the surge in interest has accelerated growth and widened the range of products their partners are asking for from solutions in wealth, to stablecoins infrastructure to digital payments.

The company has already achieved success, with over 300 institutional clients, processing more than $2.2 billion in transaction volume, and reaching profitability over the past 12 months.

e&'s digital strategy

As telecom companies increasingly recognize the strategic importance of digital assets infrastructure, this investment aligns with e&’s broader strategy to expand its footprint in the fintech space.

“There’s a natural synergy between Fuze and our fintech portfolio, from e& money to Wio and Careem Pay,” said Harrison Lung, group chief strategy officer at e&, in a statement. “This investment is about backing bold companies who understand the long game, building digital assets infrastructure to supercharge the next wave of financial services innovation."

The partnership between Fuze and e& is centered around co-developing secure, scalable, and regulated digital asset products, said Yusuf. This includes several cases aligned with e&’s ambitious digital strategy for its consumers. "We see this as a long-term strategic collaboration that could reshape how telecoms and fintechs converge with Digital Assets,” he added.

Market potential

According to a report by the blockchain data platform, Chainalysis, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has seventh position among largest crypto markets globally in 2024, with an estimated $338.7 billion in on-chain value received between July 2023 and June 2024, accounting for 7.5% of the world’s total transaction volume.

Yusuf emphasized that the UAE remains Fuze’s base and a core market, "not just for its progressive regulation but its role as a financial bridge between Asia, Europe and Africa."

“We’re also seeing strong traction in the GCC, Türkiye, and the CIS region. The Middle East is increasingly native to digital assets and the amount of intra-region trade is incredible,” added Yusuf.

As the market gains momentum, he points out that Fuze’s competitors are often either global providers with no onshore presence, or unlicensed operators.

“We believe trust and compliance will be the ultimate differentiators,” he said, adding, “With Fuze being from the region, we understand the needs of businesses and have designed architecture that is localized for each market, catering to the nuances that only natives would know”.

In April, Abu Dhabi's global tech ecosystem, Hub71, announced that startups in its Digital Assets program alone have raised more than $100 million, while partnerships with global tech leaders like Google, NVIDIA, Solana, Hashed and AWS are accelerating innovation across Web3, AI, renewable energy, and deep tech.