Marhaba, fintech friends!

This week, all eyes were on Riyadh. Money20/20 Middle East brought together more than 450 fintechs and thousands of global investors, making it the largest gathering of its kind in the region. From rounds of funding to partnerships and licensing, the announcements were pouring in all week, including:

• 🇸🇦 Tamara closing a landmark $2.4 billion facility, the largest of its kind in regional fintech.
• 🇸🇦 HALA raising $157 million in Series B funding, one of the largest of its kind in the Middle East.
• 🇸🇦 Lendo securing $53 million through a Shariah-compliant murabaha financing deal.
• A wave of seed and early-stage rounds were announced across lending, open banking and embedded finance.

Funding is one part of it. We also saw licensing milestones, new infrastructure (Google Pay goes live, Alipay+ integration on the way) and fresh cross-border partnerships.

Beyond the event, the context matters: active fintechs in the Kingdom have tripled since 2022 to reach 280, digital payments penetration climbed from 18% in 2016 to nearly 80% in 2024 and assets under management have more than doubled in 5 years.

Let’s dive into the deals, launches and partnerships that defined a milestone week in Riyadh, and across MENA.

💸 Fundraises and Exits

🇸🇦 Tamara, Saudi’s first homegrown fintech unicorn, secures an asset-backed facility estimated at $2.4 billion - the largest of its kind in the region - from Goldman Sachs, Citi and Apollo funds

🇸🇦 HALA, a Saudi fintech and provider of embedded financial services for MSMEs, raises $157 million in series B funding, making it one of the largest series B round in the Middle East’s fintech sector

🇦🇪 UAE-based SME lender, CredibleX, receives a $100 million senior secured credit facility from Pollen Street Capital

🇧🇭 Fintologya, Bahrain-based fintech, raises $1 million in seed funding to build a secure, modular, cloud-native payments platform for banks, fintechs and financial institutions across the GCC

🇸🇦 Wadaie, Saudi-based fintech, raises a seed funding round led by Venturesouq, and joined by Graphene Ventures, Rzm Investments, anb Capital and Alinma Bank, at an undisclosed value

🇸🇦 Spare, Saudi-based open banking startup, raises $5 million in a pre-Series A funding round, led by anb Seed Fund, and joined by Vision Ventures, SEEDRA Ventures, 500 Global, Boubyan Ventures, Middle East Venture Partners and other undisclosed investors

🇸🇦 Ldun, Saudi-based B2B fintech, secures $4.8 million in seed funding led by Sadu Ventures to expand its factoring solutions

🇸🇦 Oumla, Saudi-based fintech, raises $2.4 million in seed funding led by Core Vision and joined by Avalanche and other angel investors

🇸🇦 Lendo, Saudi-based SME lending startup, secures a $53 million murabaha-based (a Shariah-compliant, cost-plus-profit sales contract) financing deal from Jadwa Investment

🇦🇪 Oncount, UAE-based accounting SaaS, closes a $1.5 million seed funding round from angel investors

🇦🇪 Qashio, UAE-based spend management and corporate card platform, raises a strategic funding round from Alinma Bank.

💰 Funds

🇸🇦🇺🇸 US VC firm, FinTech Collective, secures a commitment from Riyad Valley Company for its Fund IV that focuses on early-stage investments in global fintech

🇸🇦 S60 Ventures, an arm of Saudi Investment Bank, partners with Fintech Saudi to launch the S60 Accelerator, a program that aims to support Saudi and international fintech startups from early stages to scalability with capital, mentorship and market access.

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

London’s Paymentology registers in Riyadh to expand its local presence with solutions that integrate with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Amazon Web Services 

Global payments network Thunes partners with Saudi’s digital wallet, barq, to introduce an expanded range of remittance services for barq users across the Kingdom

Morocco’s CASHPLUS partners with PayPal to allow users to withdraw PayPal funds in local currency

Saudi’s Central Bank and Ant International share plans to link the Kingdom’s national payment scheme, mada, with Alipay+

Dyna.Ai announces it will expand its presence across Saudi Arabia, partnering with financial institutions to roll out the adoption of its intelligent agents, including the Company AI Advisor, AI Credit Underwriter, AI Knowledge Partner and AI Recruiter Advisor

Google Pay and Wallet launch in Saudi

Thunes rolls out real-time cross-border payments into Saudi Arabia, allowing direct transfers to bank accounts and digital wallets in SAR through its Direct Global Network

Kuwait’s Ottu becomes the first fintech in the region to introduce AI-driven applications for merchant support, dispute management and platform control with its new product: ECHO

Dubai’s BTA Finance partners with Avaloq to modernize its wealth and investment management systems

Qatar’s Commercial Bank signs an agreement with India’s NPCI to enable Unified Payments Interface QR code acceptance across its merchant network in Qatar.

🏛 Licensing & Regulations

Abu Dhabi’s FSRA releases a proposed regulatory framework for regulated activities involving Fiat Referenced Tokens for public feedback

Dubai’s Financial Services Authority grants B2PRIME GROUP, a Cyprus-based financial solutions provider, a license to provide investment management services for banks and financial institutions

Saudi’s SAMA licenses Muhlah Zamaniyah for consumer microfinance services, Manafa and Tawrid to test their supply chain finance solutions within its regulatory sandbox as well as Hot Spot and Muqaranah to provide financial aggregation services.

Thank you for tuning in!

If you have feedback on this edition of This Week in Fintech MENA, please reach out on LinkedIn.

Until next week,

Salam ✌🏼