KSA’s Alternative Savings App Hakbah Looks to Increase User Base by 500% Following $1.2 Investment

Just six months after receiving approval from the Saudi Central Bank to launch its commercial services, KSA fintech, Hakbah, has announced that it has raised a seed funding round of $1.2 million. Led by an undisclosed group of six different investors, the funding comes hot on the heels of the startup signing strategic partnership agreement with Visa and joining its Fintech Fast Track programme in late 2020.

Founded in 2018 by Naif Abu Saida (pictured in main image), Hakbah is an alternative savings platform, its first product coming in the form of a savings group mobile app that allows users to initiate, manage and join savings group or money circles, better known as 'jamiyaat' in KSA and the Arab world. 

According to Abu Saida, the platform currently boasts over 5,000 users of over 30 different nationalities, though with the investment, it hopes to ambitiously grow the number of users by an additional 25,000 this year. A graduate of the 2019 DIFC Fintech Accelerator Programme,  the startup hopes to tap deeper into a market that is estimated to be worth $6 billion in KSA alone.

"We seek to make a difference and enable individuals to safely, transparently, and easily control their savings through the Hakbah app,” Abu Said said in light of the funding. “This investment round comes from the investors' confidence in Hakbah's strategic plan and performance that Hakbah is proud of, as a first culmination of the work team's efforts during the last period.”

While the target of 25,000 users is certainly a lofty one, Hakbah intends to achieve it by channeling the funding into product development, recruitment and marketing, as it seeks to establish itself as the go-to alternative savings platform in KSA and the region.

Learn more about Kakbah here.