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Feras Jalbout

A former Barclays and Standard Chartered banker betting first-time Gulf investors will start with commission-free fractional US stocks, a thesis that drew Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures into its first Middle East deal.

Finance  /  baraka
4
Versions on record
2026
On record since
Bitcoin
Timestamped
2
Cited sources
Dubai of Tomorrow
Finance
Feras Jalbout
baraka
A former Barclays and Standard Chartered banker betting first-time Gulf investors will start with commission-free fractional US stocks, a thesis that drew Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures into its first Middle East deal.
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Dubai of TomorrowNo. 026
baraka
Founded2020 · Dubai
Raised$25M
US stocks and ETFs6,000+
Compounding moves
2020 · Founded in Dubai by Feras Jalbout after years in banking and a family office
2021 · Launched app with Y Combinator backing and a $4M seed round
2022 · Closed $20M Series A led by Valar Ventures, the firm's first regional investment
Record v4 · 2 sources on record · Last recorded August 9, 2026 · Report an error →
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The record

Every field is drawn from the public record and checked against its source before it enters. Nothing here is self-reported.

Company
baraka
Founded
2020 · Dubai
Raised
$25M total ($4M seed, $20M Series A 2022)
Backers
Valar Ventures, Knollwood, Y Combinator

Sources

Every claim above traces to a published source. These are the ones on file.

  1. TechCrunch, 2022
  2. Gulf Business, 2022

Provenance

This record has been revised 3 times. Every version is fingerprinted and timestamped to the Bitcoin blockchain, so what it said, and when it said it, can be proved by anyone without trusting this publication.

Current fingerprint · SHA-256
80933ce906fb58ebc9f6312fd521e751c51df31cb2d052dfd08ee84b7f22f597
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v1 · Minted 2026 · 07 · 10

Entered the record from public filings and credible reporting. sha256 2212…10f1

Anchored to Bitcoin 2026 · 08 · 09

The current version’s fingerprint is timestamped to the Bitcoin blockchain across 4 versions. Provable, permanent, independent of this site.

Last revised August 9, 2026 · Raised, Verified · Full history →

Record updates

August 9, 2026

Correction: baraka's total venture funding is $25M, not $24M

Correction of the raised line only: total moves from $24M to $25M per both pinned sources, and the unsourced seed year is dropped from the parenthetical (the $4M amount and the $20M Series A 2022 are unchanged and sourced).

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