Foodics backs Funding Souq to embed restaurant lending across Saudi Arabia and the UAE
What's the deal? Foodics, a MENA restaurant operations and fintech platform, has made a strategic early-stage investment in Funding SouqDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Saudi-based Shariah-compliant SME financing platform. The investment, announced in October 2026, will fund Funding Souq's expansion across Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The amount and stake were not disclosed.
What does Funding Souq do? Founded by Martin Jaouni, the platform offers Shariah-compliant SME financing, including term loans and invoice and supplier finance. It is regulated by the Saudi Central Bank and the Dubai Financial Services Authority, has more than 10,000 investors, and aims to facilitate $1 billion in SME financing over the next three years.
What's the money for? Funding Souq will extend financing to Foodics' network of restaurant and hospitality merchants, using their sales and operating data to assess creditworthiness. The companies say they have already produced Saudi Arabia's first fully automated business loan.
Why now? The deal builds on an existing arrangement. When Foodics launched Capital 2.0 in September, it named Funding Souq among its licensed financing partners. The new investment adds an ownership relationship to that tie-up.
What's the endgame? Capital 2.0 targets roughly $100 million (SAR 375 million) in first-year financing, using restaurant performance data and AI underwriting to identify eligible merchants. The move reflects Foodics' broader ambition to evolve beyond restaurant technology into a financial services platform — what it calls becoming "the future bank for restaurants and the hospitality sector."
"We see this investment as an opportunity to support the company's next phase of growth," said Anas AlGhanim, vice president of investments and corporate development at Foodics.
What could go wrong? The strategic logic is clear, but with the investment amount and stake undisclosed, its financial scale is unknown. Whether the planned lending translates into meaningful merchant financing remains to be seen.
The signal: The deal reflects a regional push to embed capital where businesses already operate. It also lands amid a surge in MENA fintech activity, with Saudi Arabia leading regional startup funding in the third quarter of 2026 — though a handful of large deals drove much of that increase.
Read more: incubees.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
