A Riyadh-based startup building artificial intelligence software to speed bank lending decisions closed a $4 million seed round in early September, the latest sign that Saudi Arabia's push to funnel more credit toward small businesses is attracting capital and technology providers eager to solve what founders describe as a chronic financing gap.
Abwab.ai announced the funding on September 3–4, with Vienna-based Speedinvest and Middle East Venture Partners co-leading the round. The company declined to name other participants or disclose its valuation. Speedinvest's portfolio materials indicate the firm invested in 2025, and one of its general partners, Stefan Klestil, now sits on Abwab.ai's board.
The timing aligns with Saudi Arabia's ambitious target to raise small and medium enterprise lending from 2% of total bank loans to 20% by decade's end. Credit facilities extended to micro, small and medium enterprises climbed to 489.2 billion Saudi riyals in the first quarter of 2026, a 28% jump from the prior year, according to figures from the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority reported by local financial outlet Argaam. That growth reflects both regulatory pressure and a broader effort under Vision 2030 to diversify the kingdom's economy beyond oil.
Abwab.ai's pitch centers on removing friction from a lending process that has traditionally left smaller companies waiting weeks for decisions. The platform links directly to SIMAH, Saudi Arabia's credit bureau, and taps government databases including Bayan and GOSI to pull borrower financial histories and payroll records. The result, according to the company, is software that can automate underwriting and deliver risk-based pricing faster than legacy banking systems allow.
The startup now counts 13 financial institutions as clients, including SME Bank, Abdul Latif Jameel Finance, and Kafalah, a government loan guarantee program. Its product suite spans loan origination software, credit decisioning engines that blend traditional rules with machine learning models, portfolio monitoring tools, and what it calls embedded financing—pre-qualified loan offers distributed through payroll platforms and e-commerce sites.
Abwab.ai also emphasizes regulatory compliance, noting its platform adheres to the central bank's cybersecurity framework and can be deployed on-premise for government-backed funds managing large-scale guarantee programs. The company's website, reviewed in early September, provided those technical details but offered limited public data on loan volume or default rates.
CEO Baraa Koshak came to the venture after stints at Revolut, Saudi fintech Hala, and data analytics firm Mozn, with an earlier chapter at McKinsey. Co-founder Mohammad Hashem spent over a decade in banking and financial services, including time at consultancy Oliver Wyman. The startup's LinkedIn page listed 38 employees as of early September, a modest team for a company claiming to have processed more than a billion riyals in SME loans as of 2025, though the company has not updated that figure or clarified the measurement period in recent months.
Partnerships appear to be accelerating. Abdul Latif Jameel United Finance signed a cooperation agreement with Abwab.ai in mid-August, announced in the presence of Koshak and ALJUF's CEO. The startup also inked deals with ALJABR Finance at the LEAP tech conference earlier this year and formed a strategic tie-up with core banking vendor Tuum.
The company has cited a financing gap for Saudi SMEs exceeding 640 billion riyals, or north of $170 billion, in a mid-2025 blog post, though it has not disclosed the methodology behind that estimate or attributed it to an independent source. Such figures are common in emerging fintech markets, where entrepreneurs use large numbers to justify the scale of the opportunity. Whether Abwab.ai's software can meaningfully narrow that divide remains an open question, one that will likely hinge on adoption rates among the kingdom's largest lenders and the performance of loans underwritten by its algorithms.
In a statement accompanying the funding announcement, the company said it would use the capital to expand its AI-powered credit infrastructure. Speedinvest, meanwhile, launched its first dedicated Middle East and Africa fund in April, backed by Mubadala, the Qatar Investment Authority, and EIB Global, which committed €40 million to the vehicle in March. That fund's emergence suggests European venture firms see the Gulf's fintech buildout as durable enough to warrant dedicated capital, even as global venture activity has cooled.
For now, Abwab.ai is betting that Saudi banks, under pressure to meet government lending targets, will pay for software that promises to make credit decisions faster and perhaps a bit smarter. Whether that bet pays off will depend on factors the company can only partially control: the quality of the data it can access, the willingness of conservative financial institutions to trust algorithmic underwriting, and the broader health of the kingdom's small business sector.
