Hala

HALA is a Riyadh headquartered financial technology company co-founded in 2017 by Esam Alnahdi and Maher Loubieh that operates as the leading embedded finance platform for micro, small, and medium enterprises in the MENAP region, building what it describes as the future bank for SMEs. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of financial tools including HALA Payments for card acceptance through a point of sale device that can be activated in 15 minutes, HALA Business Account providing IBAN-enabled accounts with Visa-powered business cards for payments, transfers, and bill management, HALA Cashier for retail sales and operations management, HALA Logistics for courier and delivery coordination, corporate cards, SME lending, and online payment infrastructure through the integration of its 2023 acquisition of UAE-based Paymennt.com. HALA is licensed by the Saudi Central Bank as a payment service provider and by the Abu Dhabi Global Market Financial Services Regulatory Authority, serves over 142,000 businesses, and processes more than 8 billion dollars in annual transactions across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt. The company has grown inorganically through two acquisitions, the 2021 purchase of Saudi startup Fresh, rebranded as HALA Cashier, and the February 2023 acquisition of UAE-based Paymennt.com, which added omnichannel online payment capabilities and expanded HALA's footprint into the UAE market. In September 2025, HALA closed one of the largest fintech Series B funding rounds in the Middle East at 157 million dollars, co-led by TPG's Rise Fund and Sanabil Investments, bringing total disclosed funding to approximately 163.5 million dollars per CB Insights and positioning the company for expanded lending products and regional growth.