Tamara, a Saudi startup based out of Riyadh, has raised a record $110 million in its Series A round led by Checkout.com. The transaction involving both debt and equity comes barely four months after the emerging FinTech platform raised another $6 million in what was then the Kingdom’s largest seed round.
According to some reports, this could be the largest Series A round for a FinTech startup not just in Saudi Arabia, but in all of MENA. So far, there have been only around a dozen startups in the region to have received $100 million in a single funding round.
The specifics are not yet known, but it is likely that Checkout.com has acquired a minority stake in Tamara and the bulk of the new capital infused into Tamara came in as debt.
Tamara was launched in September 2020 with the vision of enabling online and offline merchants in Saudi and the UAE to offer buy-now-pay-later services to their respective customers.
The startup lets consumers defer their payments for a period of up to 30 days, following which, they are required to pay it in three equal instalments over the next two months.
The company claims that its services are Sharia-compliant, meaning the customers don’t require to pay any interest for using the platform.
Tamara’s co-founder and CEO Abdulmajeed Alsukhan recently said: “Tamara was born to make a change. The region and the world need payment solutions that are transparent and customer-oriented. At Tamara, we offer our customers an alternative to credit cards and Cash on Delivery (COD), which enhances their shopping experience. Our solution also increases our merchant partners’ efficiency as well as their customer satisfaction.”