- The company has permission from SAMA to test its innovative savings services in the Regulatory Sandbox
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Hakbah, the Saudi-based fintech savings platform, announces its successful closing of a USD 2 million pre-series A funding round.
Global Ventures – MENA’s leading venture capital firm and DIFC-based Aditum Investment Management participated in the round, providing Hakbah with its first institutional capital. The financing follows approval given by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA).
The proceeds will be used to accelerate Hakbah’s presence in Saudi Arabia, improve the user journey and improve the savings engine algorithm – to optimally serve customers who want to save in an innovative, accessible way, with a social impact.
Hakbah is one of the fastest growing companies in the region. Organic growth in 2022 was over 20x as it helped 18,000 customers save over $35 million. Hakbah empowers financial inclusion via social savings, and a solid value proposition – which has driven unprecedented demand from 120,000 active, verified and ready-to-serve customers on its platform.
Hakbah tackles the austerity crisis in the Middle East; innovative digitization of financial habits, exploiting data, needs and behaviour. In Saudi Arabia, 70% of Saudis do not have emergency savings, and the household savings rate is only 1.6% on average.
Naif AbuSaida, founder of Hakbah, said:
“We are proud to have two strong financial institutions, Global Ventures and Aditum, as our primary investors. They share our values, visions and ambitions to lift the savings industry to the next level. Savings are an important pillar in the development program for the financial sector, and increasing them is a main focus for Saudi Vision 2030.”
“Hakbah will play a key role in supporting this goal by expanding the savings offer and partnerships for employees, gig workers, students, housewives and many others.”
Noor Sweid, Managing Partner at Global Ventures, commented:
“Although savings groups are the most popular form of alternative loans for unbanked groups in emerging economies, various pain points still define the user experience. These include inefficiencies in identifying and managing savings groups, to a lack of transparency, flexibility and consistency in payments. Hakbah steps in to digitize the $6 billion ROSCA market in Saudi Arabia and the region as a whole. We are thrilled to partner with Naif and the team on their mission to modernize financial savings and increase financial inclusion in the Kingdom and beyond.”
Lachlan Hughes, head of venture capital at Aditum Investment Management, said:
“We are excited to partner with Hakbah in their mission to drive financial inclusion and promote savings in the Gulf region. The powerful combination of Hakbah’s exceptional user experience, sophisticated back-end technology and partnerships with leading regional brands will bring millions of users opportunity to meet its savings goals. We are impressed with Naif’s vision and leadership and look forward to supporting Hakbah as they continue to scale and make a meaningful impact in the region.”
Hakbah’s platform provides access to financing via savings in a legal and digital way; raise traditional saving behaviour; enables users to save for the purpose; and increase financial inclusion and literacy. Savings groups are a popular and traditional saving behavior in over 60 countries worldwide.
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More information
The media team of Hakbah
Email: [email protected]
About Hakbah
Hakbah is a social savings platform – which allows users to save and access funds via social savings. Hakbah aims to make savings for purpose accessible and beneficial to everyone, especially underbanks.
Hakbah enables people to take control of their social savings without any problems. Hakbah is authorized by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) to test its innovative services under the Regulatory Sandbox environment. And graduated from the DIFC FinTech Hive Accelerator Program 2019. To learn more about Hakbah, please visit
About Global Ventures
Global Ventures is an international venture capital firm that invests in founders and ideas that scale across emerging markets. Global Ventures supports global founders who are leading growth-stage companies that use technology to transform emerging markets.
Portfolio companies include: Abhi, Altibbi, Enhance Fitness, Hive, Helium Health, Paymob, Proximie, Pyypl, Red Sea Farms, Sympl, Tarabut Gateway, Team Apt and Zid.
More information can be found at
About Aditum investment fund
Aditum Ventures is a UAE-based venture capital fund that supports ambitious founders to help scale their businesses across MENA and beyond. Aditum Ventures has expertise in fintech and B2B software and invests in companies with high growth potential that solve big problems with technology-led solutions.
The venture fund is part of Aditum Investment Management, a DFSA-regulated asset manager. Hakbah is the firm’s 15th investment. Aditum Ventures is led by Lachlan Hughes, supported by a dedicated investment team, and leverages the deep expertise of parent company Aditum Investment Management.
To learn more or apply for investment visit www.aditumim.com/ventures or email [email protected]
