Raqamyah, the Saudi fintech Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platform operating under SAMA Sandbox environment has secured a $2.3 Million investment round led by Impact46 with participation from Vision Ventures, Mad’a Investment, Alyusur Company, Fadeed Investment and strategic angel investors. The funding aims to support the Company meeting SAMA’s full license requirements, invest in technology and talents, expand Platform offering to Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) and facilitate easier access to alternative investment opportunities for investors.
Raqamyah, founded by Ammar Bakheet, obtained SAMA Sandbox approval in July 2019 to operate a P2P lending platform (www.raqamyah.com) connecting qualified SMEs seeking different types of financing products and individual and institutional lenders looking for alternative investment with higher Murabaha returns. Since its launch, Raqamyah has been growing at a monthly double-digit rate with more than forty fully funded loans in one year. It was also the first P2P Platform to introduce an automatic lending feature where lenders can choose to set automatic investment options based on their lending criteria.
The Platform during COVID-19 lockdown expanded from lending to Micro enterprises only to Small and Medium enterprises. It was the first Platform to launch Point of Sale lending service “POS Lending”; the POS lending service is in partnership with Skyband allowing SMEs to acquire loans from Raqamyah and pay their monthly instalments through sales recorded on the point-of-sale machine. The first POS loan posted in January 2021 was oversubscribed by SAR 2 Million and was fully funded by the automatic lending tool.
“Prospects of growth for the company considering developments in fintech scene in Saudi are exciting” commented Basmah Alsinaidi from Impact46 VC “We have great faith in Ammar and his team to pave the way in this front”.
“SMEs are one of the main pillars of any economy and the region is no different. SMEs need funding to expand and prosper and Raqamyah is here to support SMEs in their growth journey. We believe Raqamyah’s team is well equipped to lead this space.” commented Kais Al Essa, Founding Partner and CEO of Vision Ventures.
Ammar Bakheet founder of Raqamyah commented that P2P lending is one of the fastest growing areas in Fintech and it is at its early stages in terms of innovation and disruption, Fintech is still at 101 level and the way forward will be full of technological developments.
Using technology to enhance credit assessment process will be the way forward to reduce origination cost and improve borrowers’ experience. Raqamyah plans to heavily invest in technology and talents to make Platform users’ experience superior. Also the Platform will focus on innovation in credit assessment techniques as well as it will work on expanding its offering of loan products to SMEs.
