Aisha S Gani / Bloomberg:
Riyadh-based Hala, which offers payment services to 142K+ small businesses in the Gulf region, raised a $157M Series B, a source says at a ~$900M valuation  —  Hala, a Saudi Arabia-based fintech company, raised $157 million in one of the largest-ever funding rounds for an early-stage startup in the Middle East.

Meir Orbach / CTech:
Tel Aviv-based Terra Security, which offers an AI-driven penetration testing platform, raised a $30M Series A led by Felicis, bringing its total funding to $38M  —  Israeli startup aims to scale offensive security testing beyond manual and costly methods.  —  Cybersecurity  —  Funding

Spooky season isn’t here quite yet, but you’d never know looking at the box office. The Conjuring: Last Rites, the latest installment about a (problematic) real-life couple who investigated the paranormal, had a massive $84 million domestic opening weekend. That’s just the latest success for horror films. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Zach Cregger’s Weapons, and Final […]

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:
Divergent Technologies, which makes automated assembly systems and 3D printers to make missile parts and other equipment, raised $290M at a $2.3B valuation  —  Divergent Technologies Inc. notched a $2.3 billion valuation in a new funding round as the startup expands its work for US weapons companies …

Qualcomm has announced that its upcoming flagship mobile chipset is the “Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5,” a confusingly named successor to the Snapdragon 8 Elite. While the processor itself will be unveiled during the Snapdragon Summit on September 23rd-25th, Qualcomm has already published an explanation for the branding update. “It might look like we skipped […]