Lendo Secures $50M Investment from Jadwa to Boost SME Financing in Saudi Arabia

Malaz Madani

Last updated 17-09-2025

3 min

Lendo partners with Jadwa Investment for a SAR 187,5 million funding boost for SMEs.

The deal supports Saudi Vision 2030 goals for increased SME lending and economic growth.

Lendo has facilitated over SAR 3,5 billion, enhancing liquidity and investment transparency.

The partnership may transform Gulf alternative finance, though resilience in downturns is untested.

Saudi SMEs welcome faster, flexible financing options as traditional banking remains slow.

Saudi Arabia’s crowdfunding platform Lendo has entered into a major new partnership with Jadwa Investment, securing a funding agreement worth SAR 187.5 million (around $50 million). The deal is anchored in Jadwa’s GCC Private Credit Fund and was unveiled at the Money20/20 Middle East conference in Riyadh.

The move is designed to strengthen Lendo’s ability to provide financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the Kingdom. It comes at a time when Saudi policymakers are pushing to increase SME lending to 20% of total bank credit by the end of the decade in line with Vision 2030.

According to the company’s figures, Lendo has already facilitated over SAR 3.5 billion in financing through more than 8,000 transactions, returning nearly SAR 2.9 billion to investors. Earlier this year, it also struck a tie-up with J.P. Morgan to help boost liquidity for SME financing—so the new partnership with Jadwa feels like another piece slotting neatly into place.

Now, anyone who’s spent time around entrepreneurs in the region can tell you that SME financing is often a bit of a faff. Banks tighten up, paperwork drags on, and by the time funds reach the business, opportunities may have slipped away. Platforms like Lendo are trying to change that pattern by making credit more accessible and investment opportunities more transparent.

I reckon this deal could mark a proper turning point, not just for Lendo but for alternative financing in the Gulf more widely. On the flip side, the crowd-financing model still needs to prove it can weather tougher economic cycles—easy lending in good times is one thing, resilience when markets wobble is quite another.

Still, if numbers are anything to go by, momentum is building. And believe it or not, I once sat with a founder in Riyadh who told me he almost missed out on a government contract because his bank took eleven weeks (eleven!) to process a simple line of credit. Fast, flexible platforms could be the difference between sinking and swimming for businesses like his.

For startup watchers at Arageek and beyond, the Lendo–Jadwa tie-up is spot on as an example of finance catching up with the real needs of the market. Whether it delivers long-lasting impact, well… we’ll have to wait and see. But for now, SME owners in Saudi Arabia might be quietly chuffed to bits at the extra options opening up.

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