Hakbah

Riyadh-based savings platform built on rotating savings groups, founded in 2018 by Naif AbuSaida; closed a USD 2 million pre-Series A round in 2023.

Industry: Fintech / savings | Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | Founded: 2018 | Total Funding: USD 3.2 million (seed and pre-Series A as reported)

About Hakbah

Hakbah is a Saudi savings app that moves the jamiya, the informal rotating savings group common across the Gulf, onto a mobile phone. Users create a group in a couple of minutes, invite relatives and friends from their contact list, choose their place in the payout order and track payments. Members are verified with a national ID or residence permit, must hold an active account at a Saudi bank, and pay through the app with a mada card, with payouts sent to a bank account in the Kingdom. The company says each member signs electronic commitment declarations and an executable promissory note.

The operating entity is Noon Hakbah Information Technology Company, headquartered in Riyadh with a presence at Fintech Hive at the Dubai International Financial Centre. Hakbah took part in the DIFC FinTech Accelerator programme in 2019 and says it is authorised by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) to test its services in the regulatory sandbox. It states that it follows SAMA's guidance on online banking security, hosts data on servers inside Saudi Arabia and holds ISO 27001 certification. Naif AbuSaida is the founder, and the company was founded in 2018.

Funding history as reported: a USD 1.2 million seed round announced in 2021; a USD 2 million pre-Series A in April 2023 financed by Global Ventures and Aditum Investment Management; and a USD 5.1 million Series A announced in December 2023 and led by VentureSouq, with M-Capital and Bunat Ventures joining and Global Ventures and Aditum participating again. One report put total funding to date at about USD 9 million. Proceeds were earmarked for product development, with a focus on machine learning and the company's savings engine that other businesses can integrate.

Coverage of the Series A reported an 18-fold rise in total savings under management and a fourfold rise in revenue during 2023, as well as a partnership with flynas. For 2022 the company said it had helped 18,000 customers save more than USD 35 million. These are company-reported figures. Mr AbuSaida said the mission is to double individual savings ratios in Saudi Arabia by 2025.

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