Two fintech companies, Tamara and Mozn, have been named in LinkedIn’s annual Top Startups list in Saudi Arabia, earning recognition as among the ten fastest-growing and most innovative companies in the country.

Released end of September, the Top 10 Startups in Saudi Arabia list showcases the most promising tech startups in the country, celebrating these ventures for their exceptional growth, innovation, and their appeal to investors, jobseekers, and industry leaders.

These companies are not only being recognized for scaling quickly, they are also pioneering advancements that are shaping the future of Saudi Arabia’s tech sector and which are reflective of the country’s dynamic business environment.

This year, Tamara and Mozn were featured in the list, underscoring their growth and leadership in the local tech ecosystem, and showcasing the relevance of fintech within the Saudi tech landscape.

Tamara: a regional BNPL leader

Founded in 2020, Tamara is a leading buy now, pay later (BNPL) player from Saudi Arabia. The company provides a platform that lets customers make purchases and split their payments into installments with no late fees, no interest, and no hidden fees. This offering makes it a powerful tool for merchants that enables increased sales, larger order values and reduced cart abandonment.

Tamara has achieved substantial growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), recording a sixfold increase in annual run-rate revenue within just two years. The company now serves over 10 million users across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait, and has partnered with over 30,000 major regional and global brands, including SHEIN, IKEA, Jarir, Noon, and Farfetch, as well as local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Tamara is backed by Sanabil Investments, SNB Capital, and Checkout.com, amongst others. The company secured its last round of funding in December 2023, raising a whopping US$340 million Series C and becoming the first fintech unicorn in Saudi Arabia.

In October, it was granted a BNPL license from Bahrain, hinting at a forthcoming expansion into the market.

The growth of Tamara across the GCC has been driven by untapped opportunities, including Saudi Arabia’s relatively low lending penetration of 30% compared to more developed markets such as Europe, the US or Australia where figures range between 50% to 70%. Additionally, the dominance of cash-on-delivery in the region’s thriving e-commerce market presents an opportunity for further adoption of digital payments solutions and BNPL services.

Usage of BNPL has surged over the past years, growing from 76,000 registered customers in 2020, to 3 million in 2021, and reaching 10 million in 2022, according to the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA)’s 2023 fintech report.

Mozn: leveraging AI to combat financial crime

Mozn, the second fintech company on the list, develops advanced artificial intelligence (AI) products and solutions, focusing on language and finance intelligence.

The company’s flagship product, FOCAL, uses advanced AI algorithms to analyze vast amounts of financial data in real time, detecting patterns and anomalies associated with money laundering and fraud. By automating compliance processes, continuously monitoring transactions, and providing actionable insights, FOCAL enables financial institutions to prevent illicit activities, maintain regulatory compliance, and protect assets.

FOCAL has demonstrated remarkable growth and expansion across multiple dimensions, including a significant increase in partner network, and substantial growth in the number of individuals screened and transactions processed. Mozn claims over a billion compliance checks to date and says it has witnessed a remarkable 350% increase in customer acquisition since 2022, with the number of customers using more than one product growing by four times in the same period.

Mozn’s second product, OSOS, is an Arabic generative AI (genAI) platform. The platform is designed to provide a culturally relevant solution that handles Arabic linguistic nuances. It’s equipped with anti-hallucination features, minimizing bias and enhancing accuracy by training on a diverse, balanced dataset.

Mozn has offices in Saudi Arabia and the UAE that house over 250 dedicated professionals. This year, the company was recognized as one of the Top 250 Fintech Companies globally by CNBC and Statista, marking its second consecutive year to be awarded the accolade and solidifying its role as a key innovator in the Saudi fintech industry.

Investors shift their focus

The 2024 Top 10 Startups in Saudi Arabia is part of a global series produced by LinkedIn that aims to identify fast-growing tech startups across key markets and underscore their progress as tech hubs.

This year, the Saudi list reveals a relatively low representation of fintech compared to the UAE, which included seven fintech companies among its top ten, and Singapore, where fintech also has a significant presence with four companies in the top ten.

This trend reflects the shift in focus within Saudi Arabia’s tech ecosystem, where e-commerce has become the favored tech vertical in 2024, attracting the lion’s share in venture capital (VC) funding in the first half of the year and overtaking fintech for the first time since 2022, data from Magnitt reveal. This is a drastic change from 2022 and 2023 during which fintech accounted for 24% and 51% of total startup funding in those years, respectively.