As the region’s $500 billion consumer lending market surges and consumer protection regulations tighten, traditional collection methods cannot deliver the reliable capital flows needed to maintain harmony in financial ecosystems. 

Today, ClearGrid is launching from stealth with $10 million in funding to build the first modern debt collection infrastructure for the digital age, turning what was once a liability into a competitive advantage that reinforces the financial foundation of the entire MENA region.

The funding comes across two rounds, with the pre-seed round co-led by Raed Ventures and Beco Capital, and the seed round co-led by Nuwa Capital and Raed Ventures. Additional institutional investors include Aramco’s Waed Ventures, KBW Ventures, Sharaka, 9yards Capital, Protagonist, BYLD, Eirad Holdings, Endeavor Catalyst, and Wamda Capital. The round also attracted marquee angel investors.

The company was founded by Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud, Mohammad Al Zaben, and Mohammad Al Khalili, who recognized that at its core, debt collection is fundamentally an information and coordination problem. 

After encountering these challenges firsthand in their careers, they set out to replace aggressive tactics with data-driven, compassionate solutions that work better for both sides of the equation – creating the equilibrium necessary for healthy economic growth.

Mohammad Al Zaben, co-founder & CEO of ClearGrid  said: “Collections should be an extension of good lending—not an afterthought. At ClearGrid, we’re reimagining debt resolution from the ground up, giving lenders the intelligence and tools they need to recover capital effectively while creating better outcomes for borrowers.”

ClearGrid offers an AI-powered collections platform that automates every step of the recovery process – from borrower engagement to negotiations – helping lenders scale while providing a better borrower experience. By combining AI, self-service tools, and omni-channel outreach, ClearGrid reduces resolution times and increases recovery rates.

Since its launch in 2024, ClearGrid has managed hundreds of millions in debt portfolios and secured partnerships with the largest fintech players in the Middle East and leading MENA banks. The company has signed over 10 major enterprise clients and built a robust pipeline for 2025, which includes expanding revenue in the UAE and entering the KSA market. 

Perhaps most impressive, ClearGrid has achieved profitability for its UAE operation within just a year of launch, though the company remains focused on scaling rather than profitability at this stage.

ClearGrid’s impact has been transformative. A major UAE bank doubled borrower engagement, leading to a 30% improvement in recovery rates. Leveraging ClearGrid’s AI-powered automation, a leading BNPL provider saw its early-stage debt resolution fully automated—with 95% of cases handled without human intervention—resulting in a doubling of performance and an outstanding 4.8/5 CSAT score. 

Beyond the numbers, borrowers who previously ignored traditional collection calls have started engaging when they feel their voice is heard and offered better options, like, principal waivers and flexible repayment plans. This improved borrower-lender dynamic builds economic confidence, reduces financial stress, and supports the stable credit markets that power economic development.

Co-Founder & Chairman of ClearGrid KSA, Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud, said: “Financial systems must evolve with the digital world. Debt resolution should be a bridge to stability, not a roadblock. At ClearGrid, we’re redefining collections with a data-driven, technology-first approach that strengthens trust, ensuring credit fuels growth not distress. This is just the first step in building the infrastructure for the future of debt resolution.” 

As digital lending accelerates across the MENA region, the need for efficient, technology-driven collections solutions grows. Lenders are seeking ways to improve borrower experiences and gain insights from data – a demand that ClearGrid is uniquely positioned to meet. 

While legacy collection agencies remain stuck in old models with manual outreach and poor borrower experiences, ClearGrid’s AI-driven approach is faster, smarter, and delivers a fundamentally better experience.

 Founding Partner at Raed Ventures, Omar Majdouie, said ClearGrid is tackling a critical pain point in the MENA debt collection industry with a truly innovative approach.

“Their AI-powered platform not only drives significant operational efficiencies for lenders but also fosters a more positive and sustainable relationship with borrowers. This balance is essential for the healthy growth of the region’s digital lending landscape, and we’re excited to support their mission to modernize collections and drive financial inclusion across the region.”

Khaled Talhouni, founding partner at Nuwa Capital, said:

“We invest in founders who see inefficiencies as opportunities for reinvention. Khalid, Mohammad, and Mohammed are doing exactly that with ClearGrid—turning debt resolution from a fragmented, outdated process into a unique commercial opportunity. By leveraging AI and automation, they are not just improving collections but fundamentally reshaping how lenders engage with borrowers, setting a new standard for the industry.”

Looking ahead, ClearGrid’s vision extends far beyond its current offerings to tackle wider challenges in the lending life cycle. The company plans to build cutting-edge collections systems leveraging AI and machine learning, develop a comprehensive enterprise platform for early risk detection and credit orchestration, and unlock new revenue streams through alternative risk assessments, AI-powered debt counseling, and debt consolidation. 

This ambitious roadmap positions ClearGrid not just as a collections solution, but as the foundation for a more transparent, efficient financial system across MENA and beyond.

List of angels in the round include Anu Hariharan (Avra), Jason Gardner (Marqeta), Bjorn Wagner (Parity Technologies), Amjad Masad (Replit), Vinay Menda (Blank Street), Justin Kan (Twitch), Mohammed Ballout (Kitopi), Sultan Olayan, Ahmed Alenazi (Barq), Ahmed Hamdan (Unifonic), and additional founders from the US and MENA. 

The investment was led by Sanabil Investments, a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, and RAED Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on the MENA region.

Founded in 2021 by Ahmed Alhakbani, SiFi aims to simplify expense management for businesses operating in Saudi Arabia. The platform offers varying solutions designed for businesses to adequately manage their corporate spending. 

A key feature is automation of expense matching, categorization, and approvals. This eliminates the need for tedious manual tasks, saving businesses valuable time and reducing the risk of errors caused by human data entry.

SiFi also facilitates the issuance and management of corporate cards, providing employees with a convenient method for making business-related purchases while ensuring all transactions are tracked and accounted for within the platform.

For employees who don’t use corporate cards, SiFi simplifies the expense reimbursement process. The platform allows for easy submission and approval of reimbursement requests, ensuring a smooth workflow.

SiFi also ensures real-time expense tracking and analytics, providing businesses with insights into their spending patterns. With this data, businesses can make informed financial decisions and optimize their operations to achieve greater efficiency.

SiFi’s platform addresses common challenges associated with traditional expense management methods. Via the automation of tasks like expense matching, categorization, and approvals, the platform reduces the risk of errors caused by manual data entry. 

Aside from providing businesses with features like customizable card restrictions and real-time expense tracking to combat fraud, SiFi also addresses the issue of limited visibility into spending data through the provision of comprehensive expense data and analytics, allowing businesses to gain a clearer understanding of their spending patterns.

Alhakbani believes that SiFi can improve the efficiency of finance departments by helping them to simplify expense management processes and better serve other departments within the organization. He envisions SiFi evolving beyond expense management to become a comprehensive financial solution suite for businesses.

The recent funding round will fuel SiFi’s growth plans within the Saudi market. The company’s long-term vision includes expanding its operations beyond Saudi Arabia’s borders, and leveraging its scalable technology infrastructure.

This investment shows the growing occurrences of venture capital activity in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government is implementing initiatives to facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship as part of its economic diversification plan aimed at reducing the nation’s dependence on oil revenue. 

SiFi joins a growing list of Saudi startups that have secured funding in 2024, despite the global slowdown in venture capital activity.

SiFi faces competition from other regional players in the spend management space, including Sanad (Saudi Arabia), Pemo (UAE), and Alaan. 

Palm.hr will leverage the investment to strengthen its reach across Saudi Arabia, while expanding into new markets such as Egypt and the UAE. The company also plans to add new features and products to its offerings, enabling employees purchase or rent assets, sign up to health or travel insurance, among other benefits.

The round was Speedinvest’s first investment in a Saudi Arabian company. The Europe-based VC led the round alongside RAED Ventures, with participation from MENA-focused VC firm Wamda Capital.

Palm.hr wants to create a mobile-first experience so as to enhance HR tech and employee experience across the MENA region.

Founded by Richard Schrems, Christoph Czichna and Dragan Nikolic, the company focuses on payroll automation, leaves and absences tracking, and staff performance monitoring and follow-up, as well as making internal communication between staff seamless.

It also automates other workflow functions related to HR including on or off-boarding of employees, and is configurable across borders, making it easy for it to match local labour laws, and employee regulations in different markets.

Palm.hr has integrated with Saudi Arabian government services such as Mudad for digital payroll and compliance, mandated by the country’s ministry of labour; the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI), and Muqeem, the foreign employee’s data platform.

Included in the seed round for Wafeq was Wamda Capital, who with Raed Ventures are one of the most prominent names in the region’s early-stage funding ecosystem.

Built for the unmet finance and accounting needs of small and medium businesses in the Middle East, this fundraise will fuel Wafeq’s entry into Egypt, while doubling down on its presence in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Businesses using Wafeq create over 630,000 invoices every month, with total monthly invoiced amounts exceeding $117 million (SAR 440 mn+).

In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE SMEs comprise over 98%, 90% 94% of all companies registered respectively. With most regional accounting still done manually or through legacy software, and global solutions not compatible with country-specific requirements, Wafeq was founded to help SMEs run a better business by solving their finance and accounting challenges.

With the digitization of accounting practices in Saudi Arabia and Egypt and the introduction of corporate tax in the UAE, the three largest economies in North Africa and the GCC are undergoing a significant shift in financial reporting. Wafeq meets every requirement of Saudi Arabia’s Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA), the UAE’s Federal Tax Authority, and soon the Egyptian Tax Authority.

Nadim Alameddine, CEO & Founder, Wafeq, said, “Thriving small and medium businesses continue to power the engines of our economy. However as they grow, they need to comply with current and new accounting regulations in this dynamic ecosystem. With Wafeq, we are simplifying and reimagining accounting compliance for business owners and accountants. Together with the backing of Raed Ventures and Wamda Capital, we are excited about our entry into Egypt while growing our presence in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”

Wafeq’s technology helps businesses run better, by staying compliant with existing and new laws without losing focus on their core operations. The company’s platform streamlines the entire accounting process for its clients, from building records to tracking sales and invoicing, to automating bank transactions and generating reports.

With its recent funding, Wafeq will continue to innovate and build new product functionalities, while also focusing on customer acquisition and hiring strategically across technical and non-technical roles.

Talal Alasmari, Founding Partner, Raed Ventures commented, “We are thrilled to back Wafeq as they solve a problem that impacts thousands of businesses in the region. The digitalisation of accounting practices will truly transform how SMEs here operate, increasing operational transparency, creating efficiencies and contributing to economic growth.”

Wafeq also offers a standalone e-invoicing API enabling businesses to stay compliant with e-invoicing regulations while maintaining their existing accounting software. This solution will allow startups and large businesses who require a reliable third party to manage the complexities of e-invoicing, which legacy solutions cannot meet.

Fadi Ghandour, Managing Partner, Wamda Capital added, “Wafeq’s team and vision for helping businesses in the Middle East streamline their accounting processes is unparalleled. We are excited about what the platform can achieve for businesses in the region and their ability to make a meaningful impact.”

Launched in 2019, Wafeq initially focused on startups and acquired customers in category-leading businesses such as Tabby, Lean Technologies, DAPI, Fenix, PiFlow, Ziina, Platinum List, and Invygo. It then quickly expanded to long-tail SMEs in a diverse range of industries, including contracting, food and beverage, ecommerce, retail, and more.

The round was co-led by Raed Ventures and Nclude, with participation from investors including Silicon Valley-based Endeavor Catalyst and 500 Global, bringing its total funding to date to $9.5 million. 

Grinta is focused on ensuring efficiency in the pharmaceutical supply chain by empowering independent pharmacies. The end-to-end platform offers a seamless and easy-to-use experience, giving access to the full spectrum of traceable pharmaceutical and medical products from multiple vendors in addition to providing fulfillment, demand planning, and inventory financing. To achieve its goal, the company is working with all stakeholders across the value chain, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and pharmacies.

Egypt has strong local manufacturers, three large distributors and more than 3,000 wholesalers all targeting 60,000 fragmented retail pharmacies that are yet to be digitised, which makes it the largest pharmaceuticals market in Africa with a size surpassing $6 billion. 

Mohamed Azab, co-founder and CEO of Grinta said, “We are very excited to have the right investor base as our backers that share the same values and vision of making Pharma accessible and affordable across Africa. As we plan to expand our footprint in the main Pharma hubs on the continent, we will also enable Egyptian and regional Pharma manufacturers to further penetrate the $50 billion African market.”

Azab added that since inception in 2021, Grinta has acquired two companies, PH Store, a similar digital platform in northern Egypt, and EME, a software development company with a solid tech team. As a result, the company expanded aggressively across seven governorates in Egypt, with over 14,000 registered pharmacies on its platform, 20,000+ SKUs and has delivered more than 100,000 orders over the last year.

Grinta is founded by serial Mohamed Azab, Yosra Badr, Ali Youssef, and Hamza Mohamed, who are active members of the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem and have successfully built and scaled several healthcare companies over the last 12 years across Africa. The founders have attracted impact-driven top talents across all verticals and reached approximately 300 employees.

“Grinta is an exceptional team of serial healthcare entrepreneurs on a mission to improve access to and affordability of medicines in Egypt and Africa,” commented Wael Nafee, Partner at Raed Ventures. 

“By empowering pharmacies to be more efficient at running their business, fixing a broken supply chain end-to-end, and partnering with all stakeholders in the value chain they will realise this vision. We’re proud to be doubling down on Grinta for this funding round as they expand across Africa.”

“We’re excited to partner with Grinta to help enable their vision of delivering customer-centric, data-driven, and fintech-enabled solutions to modernise the pharmaceutical supply chain in Egypt and beyond,” said Eslam Darwish, Founding General Partner at Nclude. 

“We look forward to supporting the Grinta team on their journey to build a digital and cashless bridge between underserved individual pharmacy owners and all stakeholders across the pharma value chain.” 

“Grinta represents our 10th investment in Egypt, making Endeavor Catalyst proudly one of the most active international investors in the country. But more than attracting attention and capital to the region, Mohamed Azab’s latest achievement advances the entire healthcare industry,” said Endeavor Catalyst Managing Partner Allen Taylor. 

“As an Endeavor Entrepreneur and Board Member, we have witnessed how Azab’s multiplier effect has impacted the local ecosystem. Our recent mapping showed that he alone has already inspired, invested, and mentored more than 100 local businesses in the Middle East, and this is only the beginning. We are huge fans of Azab and his team, knowing they can lead the next frontier of innovation in Egypt.”