Event organiser Tahaluf is collaborating with regional financial institutions to showcase how the four cohort winners of the Money20/20 MEA MoneySurge pitch competition are accelerating the deployment of institutional financial infrastructure across the Middle East and North Africa.
The competition, which distributed a share of a $400,000 prize pool to early-stage founders, has served as a primary catalyst for scaling proprietary technology across credit intelligence, private asset management, corporate savings, and distributed ledger real estate platforms.
Regional financial technology ecosystems are shifting away from localised consumer applications toward sophisticated business-to-business architectures. Venture capital firms and sovereign-backed funds are focusing resources on platforms that address deep-rooted infrastructure gaps in the market, such as credit availability for small and medium-sized enterprises and liquidity constraints within private equity markets. The performance of the cohort reflects a broader market trend where regional innovators build solutions native to the regulatory frameworks of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with the ultimate
objective of exporting these models globally.
Top-prize winner Orbii addresses structural lending inefficiencies by providing an artificial intelligence-driven credit intelligence layer directly to business-to-business lenders. Founded by Nauman Ali, the UAE-based platform integrates data analytics to automate and augment traditional credit decisioning workflows, yielding a 90 per cent reduction in evaluation times alongside a 48 per cent increase in application approval rates. By mitigating risk factors and eliminating historical loan default patterns, the company enables traditional financial institutions and digital lenders to deploy capital efficiently into underserved economic
segments.
The commercial implementation of this intelligence platform attracted institutional equity capital following the pitch victory. The company secured a $3.6million seed funding round that global internet group Prosus Ventures led, alongside participation from early-stage venture investors VentureSouq, DASH Ventures, Taz Investments, and Sanabil 500. The capital injection supports expansion, having already enabled corporate lenders to deploy in excess of $280million across the region, while the company maintains a clear operational trajectory to power over $1billion in small business lending volumes.
Commenting on the strategic trajectory of the platform, Ali explained that the market validation provides both a clear signal and an operational springboard for the enterprise. He noted that the recognition directly amplifies the platform’s credibility among established tier- one financial institutions exploring embedded credit models, whilst simultaneously strengthening ties with regional market participants who view the technology as an essential part of the emerging regional infrastructure landscape. Ali added that the Middle Eastern fintech sector holds the capacity to lead international markets in developing the next iteration of financial engineering, creating intelligent, inclusive architectures that can ultimately deliver operational benefits to Western economies.
Private market transaction friction represents another structural barrier that regional platforms are targeting to unlock institutional liquidity. Scale Award winner Zest Equity, founded by Rawan Baddour, operates a specialised digital platform that streamlines the entire lifecycle of private market transactions. The software provides tailor-made digitised workflows that allow investment professionals to design, structure, and execute complex private equity and venture capital transactions. By providing real-time tracking of investor commitments and automating the execution of digitally compliant documentation, the platform removes administrative friction from initial syndication through to long-term portfolio management.
Investor demand for private market digitisation has reflected heavily in the platform’s funding trajectory. The enterprise secured a $4.3million pre-Series A investment round that Prosus Ventures led, with additional participation from Morgan Stanley Inclusive and Sustainable Ventures, bringing its total cumulative funding to $10million across two institutional capital raises. Operational metrics indicate that the infrastructure has facilitated more than $155million in total transaction value across more than 115 pre-agreed private transactions, providing the financial foundation required to launch its technology footprint into high-growth
target markets including North Africa, South Asia, and Turkey.
While credit and private markets capture substantial wholesale capital, corporate financial wellness represents a rapidly growing vertical designed to enhance workforce stability. Impact Award winner Eddekhar delivers a business-to-business-to-consumer platform aimed at establishing structural financial resilience for enterprise workforces through automated savings programs linked directly to corporate payroll systems. Founded by Abdulkareem Alkhiary, the Saudi Arabian platform provides employees with personalised savings plans, structured Shariah-compliant investment strategies, and emergency financial liquidity facilities within a single consolidated digital dashboard.
To anchor its financial wellness ecosystem within the formal regulatory landscape, the company finalised a memorandum of understanding with Sahm Capital, the first financial technology-driven brokerage firm to obtain full licensing from the Saudi Arabian Capital Market Authority. This collaboration allows the platform to build an integrated investment architecture for corporate clients. The startup accelerated its product development through participation in the ANB Innovate FinTech Accelerator, a collaborative programme that Arab National Bank, Fintech Saudi, and Plug and Play manage, and subsequently secured international visibility by representing the Kingdom’s technology ecosystem at the COMEUP conference in South Korea via the Tech Founders initiative which the Ministry of Communications launched.
Real estate, traditionally an illiquid and capital-intensive asset class across the Gulf Cooperation Council, is undergoing a parallel technological transformation via asset fractionalisation. Seed Award winner RABEH, which founder Mohammed Alsolami leads, utilises blockchain architectures, smart contracts, and cryptographic ownership certification to democratise access to property investment markets. The platform converts physical real estate assets into digital tokens, lowering the minimum capital requirements for retail and institutional investors while ensuring secure, immutable record-keeping and instantaneous
transaction settlement.
To ensure absolute alignment with rigorous financial standards, the platform operates under the direct oversight of both the Capital Market Authority and the Central Bank of Saudi Arabia within the dedicated national fintech sandbox environment. This controlled regulatory framework allows the company to test and validate distributed ledger transaction model safely before wider deployment. The regulatory progress across both the UAE and Saudi Arabia highlights how regional policymakers actively support infrastructural modernisations, providing the legal clarity required for financial technology platforms to transition from
localised pilots to cross-border operational scaling.
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