Rise taps SAR 187.5m Murabaha financing for monthly rent

Murabaha financing is how Rise plans to grow the rent book without spending the last equity cheque on other people’s apartments. The Riyadh proptech said on 16 September 2026 that Jadwa Investment had extended a 187.5 million riyal facility, about 50 million dollars, structured as an asset-backed Murabaha against its portfolio of residential rental contracts. Landlords still get the annual rent up front. Eligible tenants still split that year into 12 months. The contracts sit on Ejar. Jadwa now sits behind that stack of receivables. That is the punch. This is not another priced seed. It is a warehouse line. Co-founder and chief executive Ibrahim Balilah, who started the company in 2021 with Mohammed Alfraihi, said the point is to keep shareholder money on product, talent and expansion while the portfolio funds itself. In a market where the default still asks a tenant for a year in one transfer, that split is the product. The risk is the same as any rent-now-pay-later book: tenants who miss a month, landlords who want cash tomorrow, and a financier who needs the Ejar file to stay clean. Rise has already mixed equity and debt. A seed around 2.9 million dollars closed in 2024. A Series A of 35 million dollars in equity and debt followed in January 2025, with SEEDRA Ventures, Raed Ventures, HALA Ventures, JOA Capital, Aqar Platform, Bunat Ventures, NAMA Ventures, Watheeq Financial and Razam Investment among names on the cap table. The company says more than 200,000 tenants have used the product, with a network of more than 3,000 landlords and 1,200 verified brokers. Those operating figures are Rise’s. They were not audited in the facility note. Jadwa is not a first-time visitor to this ticket size. In 2025 it put a 187.5 million riyal Murabaha behind Lendo’s SME book through the Jadwa GCC Private Credit Fund. The Rise line is a different asset: residential rent, not factory working capital. Same instrument family. Same signal that Saudi private credit will fund fintech balance sheets when the collateral is a contract, not a pitch deck. The MENA angle is the rental calendar. Gulf leases still often demand a lump sum that a salary cannot absorb. BNPL taught consumers to slice checkout. Rise slices the home. Ejar gives the facility a national rail that a Dubai free-zone app does not automatically inherit. Shariah structuring matters for the allocator on the other side. If the book performs, Murabaha becomes the cheap way to scale. If delinquencies rise, Jadwa owns a pile of apartments in legal form only. Caveats should sit next to the 187.5 million riyals. Facility size is capacity, not drawn cash. Terms, tenor, cost of funds and advance rate were not published. Tenant and landlord counts are marketing metrics. Asset-backed does not mean risk-free. A year of rent paid forward is still credit. CMA and rental-law questions around who bears vacancy and early termination were not unpacked in the announcement. If Rise draws the line, keeps equity for software, and the monthly book stays current, this Murabaha financing is the model other Saudi proptechs will copy. If the facility sits undrawn or the arrears show up in the next cycle, it was a headline on a warehouse. Watch utilisation, not the press photo.