The most recent news from Saudi Arabia suggest that the country has a lot of potential for entrepreneurs, start-ups and scale-ups from around the world. It is a breeding ground for success stories like Tamara and Opontia.
Saudi Arabia’s Tamara, one of the success stories in the area of FinTech, is looking at expanding the footprint regionally and internationally following the completion of a Series A financing or funding round of SAR 412.5 million (USD 110 million).
The company was launched in 2020 and supports over 1,000 merchants, including Namshi, Floward, SACO, Nice One, Whites and Nejree. It was the first Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) company to be enrolled in the Saudi Central Bank’s (SAMA) Sandbox program and claims to be the country’s fastest-growing BNPL provider. It offers consumers new ways to pay by splitting balances over three payments or paying after thirty days.
The BNPL global market is expected to grow by 400 percent to an estimated SAR 2.55 trillion (USD 680 billion) by 2025. Tamara is looking to penetrate regional markets by launching new products in new fields to support more partners.
Another Riyadh based start-up Opontia has raised SAR 75 million (USD 20 million) in financing or funding which was one of the largest Seed rounds to date in the MENA region.
Founded in March 2020, Opontia’s business model is to acquire and scale the most promising e-commerce brands. It was founded to enable e-commerce entrepreneurs to realise the potential of their brands. The company recognised that many entrepreneurs hit a ceiling in terms of growth due to constraints on working capital, operations, logistics and management. Opontia has offices in Dubai and plans to set up in Istanbul, Cairo and Lagos. It has recruited a team of experts and specialists from Amazon, Noon, McKinsey, Uber-Eats and Namshi.
Please click on the link and reach out to learn more about other success stories as well as the opportunities and possibilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the initiatives of Business Start Up Saudi Arabia.