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Foodics has launched Capital 2.0, an automated financing product that pre-qualifies restaurants for funding using their own performance data instead of a traditional loan application. The company unveiled the product at Money20/20 Middle East on September 14, 2026, and is targeting SAR 375 million, roughly $100 million, in financing disbursed through it in the first year.
What Capital 2.0 actually does
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| What’s new | An AI layer that pre-qualifies restaurants for financing using their own operational and financial data already on the Foodics platform, no separate loan application |
| Speed | Approval and disbursement completed within four hours through the Foodics app |
| Loan range | Roughly SAR 20,000 for working capital up to SAR 2 million or more for expansion, plus invoice factoring for suppliers |
| Repayment | Small deductions from each daily settlement, rather than one larger monthly payment |
| Year-one target | SAR 375 million (~$100 million) in financing disbursed |
| What it replaces | Foodics Capital, a $100 million Shariah-compliant micro-lending arm launched in 2020 with a $5,000-$133,000 loan range |
Foodics frames the product as a natural extension of data it already collects.
Ahmad AlZaini, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said: “Restaurants generate valuable performance data every day, and we believe that data should do more than help them understand their business, it should help them grow it.”
Abdullah Tahboub, Foodics’ CFO, put the underlying problem more directly: “A restaurant can be growing, generating healthy revenues and demonstrating strong performance, yet still struggle to secure funding at the moment it needs it most. Capital 2.0 is about closing that gap.”
Not Foodics’ first move into lending
Foodics has offered restaurant financing since 2020, when it launched Foodics Capital with local financing provider Maalem Finance, approved by the Saudi Central Bank, extending loans between roughly $5,000 and $133,000. Capital 2.0’s top end, around $533,000, and its SAR 375 million first-year target mark a substantially larger scale than the 2020 product, alongside a shift from a more manual approval process to automated, data-driven pre-qualification.
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The company has raised $198 million in total funding, including a $170 million Series C round in April 2022 led by Prosus and Sanabil Investments, at the time the largest SaaS Series C round in the MENA region. Foodics reported $6 billion in gross merchandise value and 29% revenue growth in the first half of 2025. One detail worth flagging rather than repeating as settled fact: Foodics’ own materials state a 2014 founding date, while independent reporting has previously dated the company’s founding, by Ahmad AlZaini and Musab Alothmani, to 2016.
Why it matters
For restaurant operators managing cash flow
Restaurant margins are thin and seasonal, and the gap between a strong month on paper and having cash available to act on it is a real operational problem, not a hypothetical one. Capital 2.0’s pitch is specific to that gap: using data the platform already has, rather than requiring an operator to compile financial statements for a separate lender, and repaying through small daily deductions instead of a lump monthly bill that doesn’t match how restaurant revenue actually arrives.
For embedded finance in the GCC’s F&B sector
Foodics sits on the same operational data every restaurant on its platform generates, POS transactions, settlements, order volume, which is exactly the kind of proprietary dataset that makes embedded lending viable where a traditional bank would need a manual underwriting process. This is a Saudi launch, but it’s a pattern worth watching across the wider Gulf: software platforms that already sit inside a merchant’s daily operations are increasingly the ones positioned to layer financing on top, ahead of banks building equivalent data access themselves.
What’s next
Foodics hasn’t disclosed how many restaurants have been pre-qualified since launch, an approval-rate breakdown, or how the SAR 375 million first-year target was calculated against its existing merchant base. Capital 2.0 was also one of several financial features Foodics showed at Money20/20 alongside expanded omni-channel payments and instant settlement tools, part of a broader push to position its MyFoodics App as a single account for sales, cash, payouts and financing.
FAQs
What is Foodics Capital 2.0?
An AI-driven financing product from Foodics that pre-qualifies restaurants for funding using their own operational and financial data already on the platform, with approval and disbursement completed within four hours.
How much can a restaurant borrow through Capital 2.0?
Roughly SAR 20,000 for working capital up to SAR 2 million or more for expansion financing, plus invoice factoring for suppliers, repaid through small deductions from daily settlements.
Is this Foodics’ first restaurant financing product?
No. Foodics launched Foodics Capital in 2020, a $100 million Shariah-compliant micro-lending arm with a $5,000-$133,000 loan range. Capital 2.0 replaces it with a larger scale and an automated, data-driven approval process.
How big is Foodics as a company?
Foodics has raised $198 million in total funding, including a $170 million Series C round in 2022 led by Prosus and Sanabil Investments, and reported $6 billion in gross merchandise value with 29% revenue growth in the first half of 2025.
When was Foodics founded?
Foodics was founded in 2014 by Ahmad AlZaini and Musab Alothmani.
Editor’s Take: Most SME lending still asks a business to prove its own financial health to a lender who’s starting from zero. Foodics already has that data before a restaurant ever applies, which is the actual reason four-hour disbursement is plausible here rather than a marketing number. Money20/20 is exactly the kind of stage that rewards a confident target over a conservative one. It is yet to see whether Capital 2.0 actually approaches that number, or whether it lands closer to where Foodics Capital’s more modest 2020 ceiling did.