Tomoh programme supports 3,300 firms and 40 Nomu listings

Published: 2026-07-09T12:03:00.000Z

Saudi Arabia's Tomoh program has quietly become one of the more effective pieces of machinery in the Kingdom's economic overhaul. Since 2017 it has supported around 3,300 fast-growing businesses and shepherded 40 of them onto Nomu, the parallel stock market.

Saudi Arabia's Tomoh program has quietly become one of the more effective pieces of machinery in the Kingdom's economic overhaul, and the latest figures show why. Since its launch in 2017, the initiative run by the Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority, better known as Monsha'at, has supported around 3,300 fast-growing businesses and shepherded 40 of them all the way onto Nomu, the parallel stock market. Companies inside the program now generate more than 38 billion riyals, roughly 10.1 billion dollars, in combined revenue, a rise of 19 per cent year on year, while employment across them has climbed past 99,000 workers, up 18 per cent. What distinguishes Tomoh from the usual grant schemes is that it functions as an ecosystem rather than a cheque. Speaking at a workshop at the Jeddah Chamber, business growth team leader Mashhor Al-Sakkaf described a journey that begins when a company registers on the Tomoh platform and completes a self-assessment running to 145 questions, designed to surface strengths and weaknesses. Each business is then handed a relationship manager and a tailored growth plan, before gaining access to services organized around three pillars of knowledge, markets and financing. In practice that means governance and financial advisory work aimed squarely at listing readiness, business-matching sessions, trade missions and connections to licensed export houses. The capital-markets results are the headline achievement. The 40 Tomoh-supported companies now trading on Nomu carry a combined market capitalization of more than 22 billion riyals and have attracted over 5 billion riyals in investment, which represents a meaningful vote of confidence in public markets as a growth-financing route rather than a vanity exercise. The program's alumni include recognizable names such as the media production house Telfaz11, the human resources platform Kabi and the apparel firm Reefi, a spread that hints at how broadly the support reaches across sectors rather than clustering in one favored industry. The regional context makes the strategy easy to read. Small and medium enterprises sit at the heart of the Vision 2030 diversification agenda, and Saudi Arabia has been methodically building the plumbing to make them investable, from the Kafalah loan guarantee scheme to plans for a dedicated SME bank and financial incentives that cover part of the cost of appointing a listing advisor. Nomu itself, launched as a lighter-touch venue than the main Tadawul board, has matured into a genuine feeder market. The approach draws obvious comparison with the UAE and Qatar, both of which have courted SME listings with less traction, and it suggests the Kingdom's advantage lies less in capital than in the unglamorous work of preparing companies to deserve it.