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Tarabut, the regulated open banking and embedded finance platform operating across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, has secured $50 million in strategic financing from a group of Saudi financial institutions and family business groups, led by Riyad Bank alongside the X-Tech Fund managed by SAB Invest, GIB Saudi Arabia, Zamil Group and Kanoo Ventures. The financing is subject to regulatory approval from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA).
Tarabut, the open banking and embedded finance platform operating across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, has secured $50 million in strategic financing from Riyad Bank, the X-Tech Fund managed by SAB Invest, GIB Saudi Arabia, Zamil Group and Kanoo Ventures.
The company says it has processed more than 5 billion API calls across the region and already powers live products including American Express Saudi Arabia’s open-banking-based credit-limit assessments and Saudi National Bank’s SME point-of-sale lending, distributed through payments company Geidea.
The financing is earmarked specifically to deepen Tarabut’s Saudi Arabia focus and expand SME-lending infrastructure, built on real-time cash-flow data rather than the static financial documentation banks have traditionally relied on.
Abdulla Almoayed, founder and chief executive of Tarabut, said:
“The institutions backing Tarabut are the institutions that run on our infrastructure. We built a regulated platform across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, and this financing will allow us to take everything we have proven across the region and go deeper where it matters most: Saudi Arabia.”
On the specific problem the new capital targets, he added: “The biggest prize is SME finance. Financial institutions want to serve more creditworthy businesses, and our infrastructure helps them turn real financial behaviour into a clearer picture for decision-making.”
What’s actually running on Tarabut’s infrastructure today
Tarabut says it has processed more than 5 billion API calls across the region since founding. Two live deployments give that scale some concrete shape: American Express Saudi Arabia uses Tarabut’s open banking technology to assess credit-limit increase requests, including for self-employed and non-salaried customers who fall outside traditional salary-based underwriting, and Saudi National Bank has launched an SME point-of-sale lending product powered by Tarabut and distributed through payments company Geidea.
A funding history that tracks a shift toward Saudi Arabia specifically
Founded in 2017 by Almoayed, Tarabut raised a $25 million seed and pre-Series A round in 2021, then a $32 million Series A in 2023 led by Pinnacle Capital with participation from Visa, Tiger Global and Aljazira Capital. It has since acquired Vyne, a UK account-to-account payments company, in 2024, and Servable, a Bahrain-based AI firm, in 2026. The company opened a regional headquarters in Riyadh in 2025, and this latest round, its first drawing specifically on Saudi banks and family business groups rather than international venture capital, continues that geographic pivot.
Why it matters
For SME lending across the GCC
The gap Tarabut is targeting, financial institutions wanting to serve more creditworthy SMEs but relying on “last year’s static paperwork rather than real-time cash flow,” as the company frames it, is one every GCC market shares. Tarabut’s approach of pairing customer verification, credit decisioning and financing directly into partner institutions’ existing digital journeys is a distinct bet against banks or governments building separate open finance rails from scratch, betting instead that infrastructure providers embed inside the incumbents.
For Saudi Arabia’s open banking build-out specifically
Bringing in Saudi-specific backers, rather than another international VC round, signals Tarabut is positioning itself as domestic financial infrastructure in the kingdom, not just a foreign fintech expanding into it. That distinction matters for regulatory relationships and bank partnerships in a market where SAMA has been actively building out its own open banking framework.
What’s next
Tarabut hasn’t disclosed a specific product roadmap or timeline beyond additional product rollouts and integrations in Saudi Arabia. The financing itself remains subject to SAMA’s regulatory sign-off, so it isn’t fully closed. Whether the next visible deployment looks like the Amex or SNB partnerships, another bank embedding Tarabut’s infrastructure into an existing product, or something new, is the concrete thing to track.
FAQ
How much did Tarabut raise and who backed it?
$50 million from Riyad Bank, the X-Tech Fund managed by SAB Invest, GIB Saudi Arabia, Zamil Group and Kanoo Ventures.
What does Tarabut actually do?
It’s a regulated open banking and embedded finance platform operating across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, combining customer verification, credit decisioning and financing directly inside partner banks’ digital products.
Which banks currently use Tarabut’s infrastructure?
American Express Saudi Arabia (credit-limit assessment) and Saudi National Bank (SME point-of-sale lending, distributed via Geidea) are the two named live deployments.
When was Tarabut founded and by whom?
2017, by Abdulla Almoayed.
Editor’s Take: Riyad Bank, GIB Saudi Arabia, Zamil Group, Kanoo Ventures, these are Saudi financial institutions and family business groups who wrote the cheques, a distinct shift from the international venture funds that backed Tarabut’s 2021 seed and 2023 Series. Open banking infrastructure pitches often stay abstract until you can point to a bank actually using the data to make a real underwriting decision. Assessing credit-limit increases for self-employed customers who don’t fit standard salary-based criteria is exactly the kind of use case that justifies open banking’s existence, rather than just repackaging existing bank data into a nicer interface.
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