THE CAPITAL LADDER
Saudi startups raised USD 1.72bn across 257 deals in 2025 — 45% of every venture dollar in MENA, and the Kingdom’s third consecutive year leading the region. Fintech took the largest single share at USD 506m across 55 deals. But annual totals mislead: fintech funding fell 74% in 2024 to USD 182m and nothing fundamental changed. Deal count and active investors are the honest gauges, and both rose without interruption.
TOTAL SAUDI VENTURE FUNDING · USD BN
THE YEAR IN FIVE DEALS
Debt facilities, secondaries, a Series B, a licence and an IPO — the moves that reset the market.
SEP 2025 · BUY NOW, PAY LATER
USD 2.4bn asset-backed debt facility
Goldman Sachs, Citi, Apollo
With Lendo’s USD 690m J.P. Morgan warehouse, announced debt capacity reached USD 3.09bn — about 1.8x the year’s entire venture total. Global banks do not price a startup’s story; they price its loan book.
OCT 2025 · BUY NOW, PAY LATER
USD 4.5bn valuation in a secondary sale
Blue Pool led the USD 160m at 3.3bn
HSBC, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley appointed for a Tadawul listing. The first IPO of a regional fintech unicorn will reprice the whole ecosystem in one direction or the other.
SEP 2025 · PAYMENTS & ACQUIRING
USD 157m Series B
TPG with Sanabil
Among the largest fintech Series B rounds closed in the region — and one of the few large rounds where a local institution appears as a joint lead.
MAR 2026 · OPEN BANKING SERVICES
First Major Payment Institution licence
Granted by SAMA
Three years in the sandbox before the licence existed. General Catalyst had led its USD 67.5m round — its first ever Saudi investment — after years of local early capital paved the road.
2024 · INSURTECH DISTRIBUTION
Tadawul IPO — USD 224m raised, USD 29bn in orders
IMPACT46 exited at ~10x
The only completed cycle in Saudi fintech history: founding, funding, growth, listing, audited profitability. IMPACT46 sold its entire stake for roughly SAR 918m.
TIER ONE · CATALYTIC · 2 INSTITUTIONS
RIYADH · SINCE 2008 · USD 8bn
The heaviest single cheque. The only local institution appearing as a lead at the top of the market.
Not the address for your first round. The address for the round that converts a promising company into a dominant one — and it demands what justifies that signal: scale, revenue, a visible path to leadership.
CLOSED · relationships, or the Sanabil 500 Global accelerator
RIYADH · SINCE 2018 · USD 1.2bn in 65 funds
The widest footprint. Every dollar committed mobilised 4.9 dollars of partner capital.
Not your first door — the door behind the doors. Convince a fund in its portfolio and you have convinced SVC. Its commitment flow maps where capital moves about two years before the deal statistics show it.
CLOSED · published programme criteria, official channel
TIER TWO · INSTITUTIONAL · 4 INSTITUTIONS
RIYADH · SINCE 2018 · USD 1.4bn
The largest technology venture platform in the region, and one of very few local firms ever to write growth cheques above USD 50m.
The local bridge most capable of carrying a company across the growth gap — deep enough to follow on, with a genuinely open door at this tier. Its compass currently points where AI meets financial services more than at classic fintech.
OPEN · form on the homepage, and inbound@stv.vc
DHAHRAN · SINCE 2011 · USD 500m
A USD 500m fund with a single LP, and that investor is the most profitable company in the world.
The natural home for fintech with a deep technical core — infrastructure, novel Islamic finance, anything touching supply chains or industry. In those fields Aramco itself can be your first customer. Its Dhahran base makes it the closest institutional capital to the Eastern Province.
CLOSED · waed.com/en/contact-us
RIYADH · SINCE 2024 · SAR 1bn
The youngest and the most specialised. A SAR 1bn fund devoted to fintech alone — the largest of its kind in the region.
The most specialised door in the entire market if you are pure fintech at Series A. Its first portfolio reveal is one of five indicators that will decide the next chapter of this ecosystem.
OPEN · 1957ventures.com/apply — published five-business-day response
RIYADH · SINCE 2018 · USD 3bn
The broadest asset base — more than ten active funds spanning venture, private equity, private credit and real assets.
The strength is the breadth of the toolkit — a company that starts with a venture round may later find private credit or a private equity partner under the same roof. One of the few firms that names fintech infrastructure explicitly in its thesis.
CLOSED · merak.capital/contact
TIER THREE · INDEPENDENT · 4 INSTITUTIONS
RIYADH · SINCE 2015 · USD 450m
The professional first believer. Fifty-two portfolio companies, thirteen of them in fintech.
The closest thing this ecosystem has to a professional first believer — a genuinely open door, a record of following on, and an international partner network. QED and General Catalyst both entered Saudi through Raed portfolio companies.
OPEN · raed.vc/apply — full form with deck upload
RIYADH · SINCE 2018 · SAR 2.3bn raised
The most complete exit record: six exits worth more than SAR 3.2bn, including the most successful cycle in Saudi fintech history.
It thinks backward from the exit — entering where it sees a visible path to a listing or acquisition, and its record proves it completes the journey. A partnership means tighter institutional discipline and a governance track built for the Saudi capital market.
CLOSED · official channels
RIYADH · SINCE 2021 · USD 70m Fund II
The fastest riser into institutional maturity. Fund II first-closed above USD 70m with government institutional capital participating.
The Capital Ladder in motion — a fund that started small in 2021, proved its record, and was then given fuel by tier one to grow. At late seed or early Series A it offers a cheque of the right size and a partner still hungry.
CLOSED · official site and partner channels
RIYADH · SINCE 2018 · 72 INVESTED · 3,000+ ENABLED
The earliest door on the ladder. A micro VC, an angel network and an investment-backed accelerator rather than a single fund.
The earliest door on this page — micro VC, angel capital and an accelerator, reaching companies while they are still deciding which licence to go after. Breadth is the distinguishing feature: 3,000+ enabled and 170+ landed into Saudi is a pipeline no fund on the tiers above operates. Direct fintech holdings are named below where we can source them; the wider enabled cohort is marked as enabled, not invested.
OPEN · falak.sa — programme intake and the angel network
FIVE STRUCTURAL READINGS
Only 4 of the 10 institutions here publish an open application route — STV, 1957 Ventures, Raed Ventures, Falak Ventures. The rest receive through relationships and referrals. That is a filtering philosophy, not negligence: the shortest path to an investor without a form runs through a founder already inside their portfolio.
The exclusive specialist (1957). The generalist with a heavy financial arm (STV, Merak, Wa’ed). The generalist whose fintech pocket grew deepest by experience (Raed, IMPACT46). One company may fit all three at different points in its life.
The biggest Saudi fintech rounds of 2024–2026 were led from abroad — General Catalyst into Lean, TPG into HALA, a16z into Stitch, Blue Pool into Tabby. Sanabil is the only local institution appearing as a lead at the largest end. Local leadership of USD 10–30m rounds is the clearest economic gap in the market.
If your model is lending, the Lendo and Tamara experience is explicit: fund the loan book with debt, not with ownership. Keep equity for building capability rather than for financing receivables.
The SiFi round alone gathered Raed, Khwarizmi and Sanabil. Tamara passed through IMPACT46, Khwarizmi and Sanabil. Build your round as a coalition, not as an auction — and watch that the density does not turn from coordination into groupthink.
FIVE INDICATORS
The first listing of a regional fintech unicorn will reprice the entire ecosystem in one direction or the other.
The first deal record of the specialised platform will test the model Riyad Bank bet on.
Unsettled whether Khwarizmi and its peers will find Series A deals of the quality their new sizes assume.
The real commitment of a16z and General Catalyst will be measured in the first winter, not the first spring.
The first complete framework opens a new asset class to every investor in this directory at once.
