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The Riyadh-based platform’s latest funding comes as it expands beyond online retail, bringing the financing of stock, suppliers and business operations into sharper focus.
Riyadh-based financing platform erad has raised $22 million in a Series A round led by Middle East Venture Partners, adding capital as it develops financing products for industrial, logistics and manufacturing businesses. The 28 September announcement identifies a broader sector focus for a company whose early proposition centred on funding online sellers.
The company says it has provided more than SAR 500 million in cumulative SME financing and received financing requests exceeding SAR 4 billion. Those figures describe activity through erad’s platform. They are not a measurement of the entire Gulf financing market, nor does the difference between them establish how much creditworthy demand remains unmet.
The development matters beyond the fundraising total. Erad is bringing its model into businesses where capital is tied to inventory, equipment and trading relationships. That changes the context in which a financing decision has to be made, from assessing an online merchant’s sales to understanding a wider range of business cash flows.
A model that started with online merchants
Erad’s Y Combinator company profile traces the business to the accelerator’s Summer 2022 cohort. Its original launch description focused on non-dilutive financing for online businesses, using accounting, sales, payment and marketing information to assess applications.
The founders’ account of that starting point is unusually specific. Salem Abu-Hammour and Faris Yaghmour had previously operated an online coffee business, while the founding team brought experience in banking, mergers and acquisitions, and enterprise e-commerce. Their launch post described selling an earlier business after encountering a shortage of capital.
That history explains the initial emphasis on commercial data already produced by an online store. Sales systems, payment processing and accounting records were central to the assessment, rather than simply being administrative documents collected after a financing decision.
The subsequent move into a broader SME market is therefore an extension of a particular underwriting approach. It is not evidence that an online retail assessment transfers unchanged to every type of borrower.
Equity and lending capacity serve different purposes
The new Series A follows a different financing transaction announced in November 2025: a scalable $125 million facility involving Jefferies and Channel Capital. That announcement described an asset-backed arrangement intended to support SME financing and a wider push into manufacturing, logistics, distribution and real-estate services.
The distinction between the two transactions matters. Equity investment finances the company behind the platform. A credit facility provides a separate source of capacity for financing activity under its agreed structure. Adding the two headline figures together would obscure that difference and would not show how much had actually reached businesses.
The November announcement also described financing embedded within supplier and business-platform relationships, including arrangements already operating with healthcare and food-and-beverage suppliers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
This places the application closer to a commercial transaction. The financing can be considered alongside a supplier relationship or purchasing decision, rather than beginning only when a business separately approaches a lender.
Banks still provide most Saudi SME credit
The wider Saudi market provides useful perspective. Argaam’s July report on Saudi Central Bank data put credit facilities to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises at SAR 489.2 billion in the first quarter of 2026, an increase of 28% from a year earlier.
Banks accounted for approximately SAR 466.7 billion, or 95% of the total. Financing institutions accounted for about SAR 22.5 billion. Alternative platforms are expanding within a market where bank lending remains dominant.
The breakdown also shows why “SME finance” should not be treated as one uniform market. Medium-sized enterprises received around SAR 230.4 billion, compared with SAR 169.7 billion for small businesses and SAR 89.1 billion for micro enterprises. Borrower size materially changes the picture.
These national credit figures and erad’s cumulative financing total describe different populations and measures. They cannot be used directly to calculate the platform’s market share. They do, however, establish that the company is pursuing a growing credit segment with a substantial existing banking presence.
The financing structure matters alongside the platform
There is also a distinction between the technology used to assess an application and the structure through which capital is deployed. In an official announcement dated 10 February 2025, Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority confirmed that Erad Partners Capital Company had completed the requirements to commence its licensed investment-management activity.
The November facility announcement separately specified that funds allocated to Saudi SMEs would be deployed through CMA-licensed direct-financing funds managed by Erad Partners Capital.
Taken together, those disclosures show why the platform, the fund manager and the financing vehicle should not be collapsed into a single description. Each performs a different function in moving institutional capital towards business borrowers.
A faster decision still depends on the business record
Erad’s published terms describe an assessment based on business performance, revenue history, sector factors and risk models. They also distinguish its 48-hour processing ambition from a guaranteed outcome, with timing dependent on complete information and verification.
The financing offer sets out the amount, cost, repayment structure and repayment period before acceptance. Those are the terms that determine what a financing arrangement means for the business, beyond the speed of its initial application.
Following the Series A, erad says it will develop further sector-specific products and expand its technology and commercial teams. The next concrete development to watch is which products reach industrial and logistics borrowers, and the terms on which that additional capital becomes available.
