Safqah Capital, a Riyadh-based fintech and proptech platform, has successfully raised $15.2 million in one of the Kingdom’s largest pure equity seed funding rounds. The round was led by Shorooq, with significant participation from anb Seed Fund and Rua Growth Fund, alongside a consortium of investors including Sharaka Capital, COTU Ventures, Sadu Capital, 500 Global, Suhail Ventures, MEVP, Waad Invest, and JOA Capital.
Addressing a Foundational Challenge
While Saudi Arabia’s giga-projects dominate headlines, Safqah Capital is tackling a crucial bottleneck in the market: providing faster and more transparent capital access for the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) developers responsible for delivering the nation’s housing and commercial supply. This segment has been historically underserved by traditional banks, which often impose lengthy approval cycles and high collateral thresholds.
In just 18 months, Safqah has financed over 70 development projects with a combined value exceeding $800 million. The company maintains a zero-default track record, with all loans collateralized at over 248% and disbursed through a milestone-based framework.
“Banks were not built for developers—we were,” said Abdullah Alsubaie, Co-Founder and CEO of Safqah. “We’ve engineered an ecosystem where developers can access capital faster, accelerate project delivery, and improve capital efficiency while strengthening monitoring and risk controls for all stakeholders.”
A Digital Operating System for Developers
Safqah offers a Shariah-compliant debt-financing solution that functions as a digital “operating system” for real estate development. The platform integrates real-estate underwriting, structured financing, and developer-centric software into a single workflow, managing funding, project monitoring, and documentation.
By leveraging advanced data analytics and AI, Safqah enhances project monitoring, improves decision-making, and increases transparency for all parties. This provides developers with a streamlined portal to manage projects and gives investors access to diversified, asset-backed opportunities supported by data-driven reporting.
“Safqah is not another lending platform—it’s foundational infrastructure,” commented Shane Shin, Founding Partner at Shorooq. “They’ve built a model designed for the pace of development in Saudi Arabia while meeting regulatory standards and the expectations of institutional investors. We see Safqah Capital becoming an indispensable part of the country’s real estate machine.”
Investor Conviction and Vision 2030 Alignment
The significant investment underscores growing confidence in Safqah’s pivotal role in achieving the real estate ambitions of Saudi Vision 2030. Investors highlighted the company’s unique position to unlock market potential.
Khalid S. Alghamdi, CEO of anb capital, stated, “Safqah brings together technological innovation and strong credit governance to deliver more efficient and transparent financing solutions for real estate developers across the region. We believe the company is well positioned to support the evolution of the real estate and financial services sectors.”
Turki Aljoieb, General Partner at Rua, added, “By enabling efficient project execution and scalable housing delivery, Safqah supports national affordability objectives and advances Vision 2030 homeownership targets, while providing investors with disciplined access to long-term, asset-backed exposure to the Kingdom’s real estate sector.”
Strategic Use of Capital
The new capital will be used to enhance Safqah Capital’s product offering and digital platform, with a focus on building more sophisticated AI tools for risk assessment and underwriting. A primary objective is to expand its financing capacity to meet the surging demand from developers, enabling the company to fund a greater number and larger scale of projects.
About Safqah Capital
Founded in 2023 by Abdullah Alsubaie, Karim Merie, Abdulmalik Alothman, and Omar Alessa, Safqah Capital is a Saudi-based fintech/proptech company building Shariah-compliant real estate financing infrastructure. Authorized by the Kingdom’s Capital Market Authority (CMA), the platform provides SME developers with the essential liquidity and digital tools needed to accelerate project delivery and enhance capital efficiency, directly supporting the growth of Saudi Arabia’s real estate ecosystem.
Source: Wamda
