Aramco’s Wa’ed invests $5.06m in fintech startup Lamaa

Aramco’s Wa’ed invests $5.06m in fintech startup Lamaa

Wa’ed, Saudi Aramco’s entrepreneurship arm, has announced a SR19 million ($5.06 million) Pre-Series A investment co-led with Raed Ventures in Lamaa, a Saudi-based fintech startup. Lamaa provides financing solutions for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including Supply Chain Finance & Buy Now Pay Later.

 

The Riyadh-based start-up was established in March 2021 by entrepreneur Sumeet Khutale, who has recently relocated from London to Riyadh and has extensive experience across digital banking and cloud technology with Global consulting companies and banks, including Barclays and JP Morgan in the past. 

 

Lamaa seeks to address available funding gaps for SMEs whose size presents a challenge in obtaining credit risk ratings, directly impacting their cash flow.

 

By enabling early invoice payment for SMEs through its digital marketplace, Lamaa will offer corporate treasuries an option to deploy surplus funds through dynamic discounting of invoices. 

 

Alternatively, approved and unpaid invoices can be listed for banks and financial institutions to clear the reduced payments on behalf of the corporates.

 

The investment secured from Wa’ed and Raed will help Lamaa further develop its Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) platform to facilitate factoring across thousands of suppliers simultaneously. Its goal is for SME suppliers to benefit from shorter cash conversion cycles independent of credit