Key Takeaways:
Sew raised up $25 million in its Collection A spherical led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the primary enterprise to spend money on Sew in Saudi ArabiaBased on stories, Sew has processed greater than $5 billion value of transactions on its platform over the previous six months, which noticed income improve by 20 instances within the 12 months 2025The corporate is engaged on the API-based infrastructure to allow the launch of tokenized, and AI-ready, monetary merchandise sooner for banks and fintech
International enterprise capitalists are probing how a lot deeper crypto-centric infrastructure funding can go within the Center East looking for the following huge monetary rail. Enquiry traders in Banking, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, and Metals sector has elevated and the traders demand for blockchain appropriate banking techniques which might be linked to actual world monetary exercise has been rising.
a16z Makes First Saudi Arabia Guess With Sew
Riyadh-based fintech Sew introduced a $25 million Collection A led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing the corporate’s complete funding to $35 million. Current backers together with Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC additionally joined the spherical.
Sew raised a $25M Collection A, led by @a16z, with continued backing from Arbor, COTU, Raed, and SVC.
Grateful to our clients, who belief us with the techniques that run their enterprise.
Monetary establishments nonetheless run on infrastructure that ought to have been left behind 20 years… pic.twitter.com/XgvVqdNKK6
— Mohamed Oueida (@MoOueida) Might 14, 2026
The deal stands out as a result of it marks a16z’s first funding within the GCC area. The enterprise large mentioned Sew represents a brand new technology of economic infrastructure constructed for digital belongings, AI integration, and programmable finance.
Based on a16z, greater than $5 billion has already been transacted via Sew’s platform within the final six months alone. The agency additionally claimed buyer development elevated 10x in 2025, whereas income climbed 20x throughout the identical interval.
Sew is now energetic in areas of the GCC, Africa and Southeast Asia. It has a shopper base of economic establishments and cost corporations like LuLu Trade, Raya Financing, Noqodi, and Foodics.
Learn Extra: a16z Makes Daring Asia Push: Opens Seoul Workplace as It Targets the World’s No.2 Crypto Market
Sew Pushes API Infrastructure for Trendy Finance
The corporate is growing an “OS for FI’s. It has an infrastructure stack that features cost, card, lending, and ledger capabilities, together with workflow automation through modular APIs.
AI and Tokenization Are Driving Demand
Lots of the banks are nonetheless on legacy techniques that had been applied many years in the past and thus hindered by the adoption of AI, mentioned Mohamed Oueida, Founder CEO of the challenge. He contended that to actually incorporate using AI instruments, monetary corporations should start by enhancements of their elementary layers of framework.
The story line is changing into extra prevalent all through the crypto and fintech area. The necessity for sooner settlement techniques and programmable monetary structure that works throughout jurisdictions throughout all tokenization platforms, stablecoin issuers and digital asset corporations is barely a part of the story.
Sew’s cloud-based mannequin provides an incremental method for establishments to modernize as a substitute of an all-or-nothing state of affairs as a way to exchange a complete banking system. It may resonate with innovators at banks which might be venturing into stablecoins, tokenization and settlement networks on the blockchain.
Center East Crypto Infrastructure Race Accelerates
The fundraise additionally sheds mild on the rising prominence of the Center East within the digital asset infrastructure sphere. Each Saudi Arabia and UAE have taken measures to attraction to fintech and blockchain corporations through regulatory measures and institutional partnerships.
Monetary establishments the world over are grappling with “infrastructure debt,” which means adoption and innovation with AI is slowing, a16z Common Associate Alex Rampell mentioned. He added that fashionable system-of-record platforms like Sew may turn out to be important for the following part of economic know-how.
Learn Extra: Ripple Groups Up With Saudi Financial institution’s Jeel to Check Quicker Blockchain Funds in Regulated Sandbox
