Bahrain-founded Tarabut secures $50M from Saudi banks and investors to expand embedded finance and SME lending infrastructure in the Kingdom.
The financing includes Riyad Bank, the X-Tech Fund managed by SAB Invest, GIB Saudi Arabia, Zamil Group and Kanoo Ventures, the investment arm of Yusuf bin Ahmed Kanoo Group, alongside other regional institutions.
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The transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals, including approval from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA).
Founded in 2017 by Abdulla Almoayed, Tarabut operates across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. The company began with open banking infrastructure and has expanded into embedded finance, payments and credit decisioning, connecting financial institutions with businesses and consumers through its platform.
Scaling Embedded Finance Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has become increasingly important to that strategy. Tarabut opened its regional headquarters in Riyadh in 2025 and says it has connected with the Kingdom's major banks. Its financial institution relationships include Saudi National Bank (SNB), Alinma Bank and SAB.
The new financing will support Tarabut's expansion in Saudi Arabia and the development of end-to-end embedded finance journeys that bring verification, credit decisioning and financing into a single digital flow.
Tarabut does not lend from its own balance sheet. Instead, its infrastructure allows financial institutions to use customer-permissioned financial data and real-time cash-flow information alongside traditional documentation when assessing borrowers.
Financing can then be delivered through third-party platforms under the financial institution's brand.
Transforming SME Lending
That model is particularly relevant to SMEs, which can be harder for lenders to assess using traditional financial statements and other static documentation. By giving lenders access to more current financial behavior and cash-flow data, Tarabut aims to help financial institutions make credit decisions with a more up-to-date view of a business's financial position.
“The biggest prize is SME finance,” Almoayed, Tarabut's founder and CEO, said. “Financial institutions want to serve more creditworthy businesses, and our infrastructure helps them turn real financial behaviour into a clearer picture for decision-making.”
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Tarabut's technology is already being used in several financial services products in Saudi Arabia. American Express Saudi Arabia has used Tarabut's open banking technology to assess credit-limit increase requests, including for self-employed and non-salaried customers.
SNB has also announced an SME point-of-sale lending product powered by Tarabut and distributed through payments company Geidea. Tarabut has separately partnered with SAB on embedded finance.
Infrastructure Growth and Acquisitions
The company says it has processed more than 5 billion API calls across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. The latest financing gives Tarabut additional capital to build on that infrastructure as Saudi Arabia becomes the main market for its embedded finance strategy.
Tarabut has also expanded its technology through acquisitions. In 2024, the company acquired UK account-to-account payments company Vyne, adding payment initiation capabilities to its open banking infrastructure.
Earlier in 2026, it acquired Bahrain-based AI engineering company Servable, adding capabilities in synthetic data, model training and AI-powered decisioning for regulated financial institutions.
Strategic Market Positioning
The company previously raised $32 million in a 2023 Series A led by Pinnacle Capital, with participation from Visa, Tiger Global and Aljazira Capital. It had also raised $25 million across seed and pre-Series A rounds in 2021.
With the latest $50 million financing, Tarabut is now positioning its infrastructure beyond open banking toward a broader role in how financial institutions verify customers, assess credit and deliver financing through digital channels.
Why it Matters to MENA Startups
Saudi Arabia's embedded finance market is moving beyond APIs and account connectivity toward infrastructure that can support actual financial products. For fintechs and digital platforms, that means financing can increasingly be built into the point where a customer needs it rather than requiring a separate application process.
For banks, infrastructure providers such as Tarabut can provide the data and decisioning layer needed to distribute those products through third-party platforms. Tarabut's latest financing also highlights growing participation from established Saudi financial institutions and business groups in fintech infrastructure.
Its next phase will show how far that infrastructure can translate into wider SME financing and embedded financial products across the Kingdom.
Engagement
