Arab Therapy raises $2 million to bring Arabic-language mental health care to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East

Mental health care in the Arab world has a language problem. Not just literally, but culturally. Most digital platforms are built for English-speaking markets and adapted, poorly, for everyone else. Arab Therapy was founded on the premise that this isn't good enough, and investors are starting to agree.

The startup has closed a $2 million pre-Series A round led by Manara Ventures, with Anara Impact Fund and Value Makers Studio also participating. Founded in 2021 by Jordanian entrepreneurs Dr Tareq Dalbah and Hekmat Al Hasi, the company offers online therapy sessions with licensed Arabic-speaking specialists, a mental health content library, and AI-powered tools, all built natively in Arabic. Its clinical framework is supervised by professionals from the University of Hamburg.

Arab Therapy operates on both B2C and B2B models, serving individual users and corporate clients. This dual approach matters: employer-sponsored mental health benefits are growing fast across the GCC, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where Vision 2030 has put workforce wellbeing firmly on the agenda.

The company previously raised $1 million in seed funding in April 2024, led by Flat6Labs and Vision Health Pioneers.

The funds will be used for...

• Geographic expansion into Saudi Arabia
• Broader growth across the Middle East
• Scaling the platform's AI-enabled mental health tools
• Building out B2B enterprise offerings for corporate clients

Why does it matter?

More than 400 million people speak Arabic, yet culturally appropriate mental health services remain scarce across the region. Stigma is one barrier. But so is access: finding a licensed therapist who speaks your language, understands your cultural context, and is available online is harder than it should be. Arab Therapy is one of the few startups genuinely built for this gap, not retrofitted to fill it.

The context

Saudi Arabia is the obvious next market. The Kingdom has made mental health a national priority, with the Ministry of Health expanding psychiatric services and telehealth becoming a permanent fixture post-pandemic. The UAE has moved in a similar direction. So the timing is right. Still, execution in the GCC is rarely simple, and scaling a clinical platform across multiple regulatory environments will test the company. The investors backing this round, particularly Manara Ventures and Anara Impact Fund, both have regional networks that should help.