Enhance raises $18.2 million to expand in the U.S. market as its gym-operating model moves from the Gulf to the global market

The Enhance platform, which specializes in software for operating personal training services for gyms and is based in Dubai, closed a financing round of $18.2 million that combined equity and venture debt instruments, led by Global Ventures on the equity side and with Stride Ventures participating in the credit financing, to direct the proceeds toward accelerating its rollout in the U.S. market after its software was licensed there at the start of 2025.

The company was founded in 2018 by its CEO Tarek Muneer as a direct provider of fitness services, before re-engineering its model into a cloud-based software platform that manages club chains across 700 contracted locations in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United States.The platform currently serves more than 15,000 personal trainers, logging over 500,000 training sessions per month, achieving revenue growth of 65 %, a performance metric the company relied on to justify its Atlantic expansion leap.

The platform’s technical architecture relies on a defined split of tasks between algorithms and the human element, with models automating the production layer that includes designing workout programs, scheduling, and easing administrative and operational burdens, while the trainer focuses on the on-site relationship and direct guidance that the subscriber pays for. This approach enables operators of gym chains to standardize, update and deploy training programs across dozens of locations quickly, without compromising the human link between trainee and trainer, and is aimed at large facilities that seek to retain subscription renewals rather than targeting individual consumers with standalone fitness apps.

This expansion serves as a practical test of Gulf-based enterprise software firms’ ability to export their solutions to advanced markets, after most regional tech activity has focused on consumer models such as delivery and e-commerce that remained geographically confined. The financing mix, which includes venture debt, also reflects the platform’s mature cash flows and stable recurring revenue, paving a path for regional startups to leverage the depth of Gulf markets as a real-world testbed before competing in retail and services sectors in the United States and Europe.

This shift forces operators of sports facilities and investors in the Gulf, Egypt and the Levant to reassess operational spending efficiency and adopt tools that boost field-staff productivity without expanding the administrative hierarchy.The reverse expansion model, moving from the Middle East to the West, also opens a door for regional specialized software developers to build platforms that meet compliance, billing and multi-operational requirements, leveraging the robustness of regional market tests to demonstrate viability and global scalability.