Riyadh-based startup Lamaa, a developer of financial technology solutions to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) has raised a $5.5 million investment in a seed round which was led by early-stage venture capital firm, Raed Ventures and Saudi Aramco’s entrepreneurship arm Wa’ed.
The investment which is considered to be one of the largest seed funding rounds in the country is in line with Saudi Arabia’s commitment to SMEs’ financial inclusion part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 push.
Lamaa offers financing solutions such as Supply Chain Finance & B2B Buy Now Pay Later plans for SMEs with the aim to create more efficient working capital management for suppliers and maximizing return on the treasury for corporate, supporting Vision 2030 to enable and digitalize SMEs and raise their contribution to 35 percent of GDP by 2030.
Sumeet Khutale Founder and CEO Lamaa
“Since our initial launch in March 2021, Lamaa has grown dramatically, with over 100 corporate clients in the pipeline and a projection of over $1 billion dollars’ worth of invoices to be soon launched in its marketplace.”
The Lamaa CEO further added that “In addition to supply chain finance, we will soon start offering B2B Buy Now Pay Later plans, which would be the first offering of its kind in the region. We also plan to expand our company into Egypt, UAE and Qatar in the next few months.”
Mr. Khutale, an accomplished professional with extensive experience in Investment Banking Technology and Cloud banking with global consulting companies such as Barclays Capital and JP Morgan established Lamaa in early 2021. The startup seeks to address available funding gaps for SMEs whose size present a challenge in obtaining credit risk ratings, having a direct impact on their cash flow.
Sharing his view about the startup, Mr. Omar Almajdouie, Founding Partner at Raed Ventures remarked that, “What excites us about Lamaa is that it’s a great platform to empower SMEs in Saudi Arabia, and it’s managed by a well-experienced team led by Sumeet. For Lamaa, creating tremendous value from already-available cash will generate a win-win scenario in almost every transaction.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Fahad Alidi, the Managing Director at Wa’ed stated that “For a newly established start-up that has already acquired impressive growth and secured key partnerships across the Saudi market, Lamaa presents the type of entrepreneurial business that not only empowers its own team and start-up sector, but can also promote a stronger foundation for other emerging local SMEs who use the platform for financing solutions.”
“We’re proud to support Lamaa’s founding team as they continue to break new grounds in the local fintech space,” Mr. Alidi added.
With the region’s GDP being estimated at $3 trillion, 30 percent of which is at least attributed to SMEs, Lamaa’s has immense market potential in MENA.
