Beehive becomes first SME lender regulated across three Gulf markets

Published: 2026-07-02T06:14:00.000Z

Beehive has finally turned its long courtship of the Saudi market into something concrete. The Dubai-based lender confirmed on 1 July that it completed its acquisition of a majority stake in Themar, a crowdfunding platform licensed by the Saudi central bank.

Beehive has finally turned its long courtship of the Saudi market into something concrete. The Dubai-based digital lender confirmed on 1 July that it has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Themar Al Aamal Commercial Company, the holding entity behind Themar, a debt crowdfunding platform licensed by the Saudi central bank. The deal had been in the works since September last year, when the two sides signed a non-binding offer letter, and its completion hands Beehive something it has wanted for years, namely a properly regulated foothold inside the Kingdom rather than a presence stitched together through banking partnerships. The significance goes beyond a single transaction. With Themar now under its wing, Beehive becomes the first digital small business financing platform to hold regulatory licenses across three Gulf markets at once, covering the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia. The company has been operating in Saudi Arabia in one form or another since 2020, but always at arm's length through tie-ups with local banks. Folding in a platform already sanctioned by the Saudi Central Bank converts that soft presence into a fully licensed operation, which matters a great deal in a market where regulatory standing is often the difference between scaling up and staying on the sidelines. Founded in Dubai in 2014, Beehive built its name as the first peer-to-peer lending platform in the region to win approval from the Dubai regulator, connecting smaller firms in need of finance with investors willing to fund them. It has since channeled money to more than 3,000 small and medium businesses across the Gulf, offering both conventional and Shariah-compliant products. The company is itself majority owned by e& enterprise, the technology arm of the UAE telecoms group formerly known as Etisalat, which bought control back in 2023. Peter Tavener, co-founder and group chief executive, framed the Themar move as a shift from partnership to platform, giving the business a firmer base from which to lend. The regional logic here is hard to miss. Saudi Arabia sits on an enormous small business funding shortfall, estimated at around 500 billion riyals or roughly 133 billion dollars, and closing that gap is central to the Vision 2030 drive to diversify the economy away from oil and lift the private sector. Beehive is not alone in chasing it, with home-grown Saudi platforms such as Lendo and Funding Souq already active alongside a growing crop of buy-now-pay-later and fintech lenders backed by local capital. Having already arranged a structured funding facility with Goldman Sachs and Magellan Capital in the Emirates, Beehive now plans to set up something similar inside Saudi Arabia to feed its lending pipeline, a sign it intends to compete seriously rather than simply plant a flag.