{"id":4011,"date":"2025-09-13T15:23:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T12:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/?p=4011"},"modified":"2025-09-13T15:23:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T12:23:34","slug":"saudi-fintech-tamara-secures-1-4-billion-debt-financing-from-goldman-citi-and-apollo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/?p=4011","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Fintech Tamara Secures $1.4 Billion Debt Financing from Goldman, Citi, and Apollo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Riyadh:<\/strong> Saudi Arabia-based fintech unicorn Tamara<\/strong><\/a> is set to secure at least $1.4 billion in financing<\/strong> from a consortium of global financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., and Apollo Global Management Inc.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The deal, which refinances and expands a previous debt facility arranged by Goldman Sachs, ranks among the largest asset-backed financing transactions in the Middle East.<\/strong> The move underscores growing appetite from global finance giants to deploy capital in the region, highlighting Saudi Arabia\u2019s rising influence in the fintech sector.<\/p>\n

Founded less than three years ago, Tamara reached unicorn status in 2023<\/strong> and is now one of the region\u2019s best-funded “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) companies. Its investors include a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund<\/strong> and global payments platform Checkout.com.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The entry of Wall Street lenders and Apollo into the deal reflects intensifying competition among financiers to back high-growth Middle Eastern firms. Tamara\u2019s main rival, Tabby,<\/strong> secured an asset-backed credit line from JPMorgan Chase & Co.<\/strong> in 2023.<\/p>\n

The transaction also comes at a time when Middle Eastern startups are attracting record funding. Companies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE raised $1.35 billion in the first half of 2025, nearly double the figure from the previous year.<\/strong> This contrasts sharply with global emerging markets, where venture funding slumped to its weakest first half since 2017.<\/p>\n

Goldman Sachs has already pledged to expand private credit in the Gulf and is relocating a senior executive to the region. Other recent deals include Pollen Street Capital<\/strong> extending a $100 million lending facility to a UAE fintech and Nomura Holdings Inc.<\/strong> providing debt financing to a Dubai-based luxury developer.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, regional venture capital<\/a> momentum continues to build. VentureSouq<\/strong> recently announced the close of its second FinTech Fund,<\/strong> backed by sovereign and institutional investors, to support early-stage fintech and SaaS companies across MENA.<\/p>\n

With net revenue in the Middle East\u2019s fintech<\/a> sector projected to grow 35% annually through 2028,<\/strong> Tamara\u2019s record-breaking financing deal signals both investor confidence and the region\u2019s accelerating role as a global fintech hub.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia-based fintech unicorn Tamara is set to secure at least $1.4 billion in financing from a consortium of global financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., and Apollo Global Management Inc. The deal, which refinances and expands a previous debt facility arranged by Goldman Sachs, ranks among the largest asset-backed financing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post","format-standard"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4011"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4015,"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4011\/revisions\/4015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ksa.fintechnews.media\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}