\n\tRIYADH: Private debt has overtaken venture capital as the dominant source of startup funding in the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia accounting for the vast majority of the GCC\u2019s $4.1 billion in structured credit deployment in 2025, according to an industry report.<\/p>\n
\n\tData released by Stride Ventures showed that private debt, including venture debt and growth credit, expanded more than eightfold from around $500 million in 2024, underscoring a rapid shift in how high-growth companies across the region are financing expansion.<\/p>\n
\n\tSaudi Arabia led the market with approximately $3.9 billion in private debt transactions, far ahead of the UAE at $211 million and Bahrain at $22 million, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt found that structured credit accounted for more than half of the GCC startup ecosystem’s $7.4 billion in tracked funding during 2025, surpassing venture capital investments of $3.3 billion.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe findings suggest that non-dilutive financing is moving from a complementary funding source to a primary growth tool for startups and scale-ups across the region.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe GCC\u2019s private debt market has moved from early exploration to institutional conviction,\u201d said Fariha Ansari Javed, partner for GCC and global capital formation at Stride Ventures.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat stands out is not just the scale of deployment and participation of the region\u2019s largest sovereign wealth funds, but the fact that credit is entering the capital stack earlier in the company lifecycle, especially across fintech and asset-backed models.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to the report, the rise of private debt has been supported by sovereign-backed investment programs, regulatory reforms, rapid fintech growth and government-led efforts to accelerate business scaling.<\/p>\n
\n\tInstitutions including Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund, Jada Fund of Funds and Sanabil Investments, alongside the UAE\u2019s Mubadala and ADQ, have played a role in expanding the region\u2019s startup financing ecosystem.<\/p>\n
\n\tUnlike more mature markets where companies typically progress from equity financing to debt at later stages, GCC startups are increasingly combining both forms of capital much earlier, often from Series A through to pre-IPO stages.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe trend is most visible in fintech, where companies require substantial and recurring access to capital to support lending operations and platform growth.<\/p>\n
\n\tFintech accounted for roughly 95.5 percent of all private debt deployed in the GCC last year, representing about $3.9 billion of total funding.<\/p>\n
\n\tAmong the largest transactions highlighted in the report were Saudi fintech firms Tamara, which secured $2.4 billion in financing, and Lendo, which raised $740 million. Other notable deals included Deem at $400 million, Erad at $33 million, the UAE\u2019s CredibleX at $100 million, Kitopi at $50 million and Octa at $20 million.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe report said the dominance of fintech reflects a broader structural shift in the region, with institutional lenders increasingly providing asset-backed financing to support loan books, receivables and other growth assets at earlier stages of corporate development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIYADH: Private debt has overtaken venture capital as the dominant source of startup funding in the Gulf, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-767377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}