In 2025, the GCC's fintech sector had a year to remember. According to Wamda's annual funding report, fintech attracted $4.4 billion across the MENA region, about 58 percent of all startup capital deployed, a record share that left every other sector in the shade. Proptech, the second-largest category, managed just $1 billion. The message was unambiguous: investors had decided that digital financial services were not a bet on the future. They were a bet on right now. Then 2026 arrived. Geopolitical tensions escalated sharply. Global risk appetite tightened. The easy capital of the post-pandemic boom dried up. For most of the regional startup ecosystem, the numbers turned ugly fast — total MENA startup funding fell 37 percent year-on-year to $941 million in Q1 2026. March was the low point: just $48.3 million raised across the entire ecosystem, an 85 percent month-on-month collapse, one of the weakest single months on record. However fintech led sectoral funding every single month through this period.…