Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector continues to garner significant support– Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC) has launched an $80 million investment fund.

Launched in partnership with the Capital Market Authority (CMA) and the Financial Sector Development Program (FSDP), the ‘Investment in Fintech VC Fund’ is designed to bolster the fintech industry’s growth, which has seen an increase of 167% in 2022 compared to 2021.

The fund will give investors access to a diversified portfolio of high-growth fintech startups across various sectors, including payments, lending, insurance, and wealth management. 

SVC aims to stimulate financing for startups and SMEs from the early stage to initial public offering by backing venture capital and private equity firms in the MENA region. It has invested in several fintech startups, including Tamara’s Buy Now Pay Later platform and Raqamyah, a digital lending platform for SMEs. It also signed a memorandum of understanding last month with the Saudi stock market Tawadul to support SMEs going public.

The news comes as the kingdom’s fintech industry experiences a rapid boost. The Saudi Press Agency reported that the total value of VC investments in the country’s fintech sector reached $239 million in 2021. 

It’s a welcoming contrast compared to 2022. According to KPMG’s Pulse of Fintech H2’22, fintech investment in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa dropped sharply from $79 billion across the region’s 2,379 deals in 2021 to $44.9 billion across 1,977 deals in 2022.  

Egypt is also making moves to stimulate non-banking financial activities. Earlier this week, at the RiseUp Summit 2023, the Egyptian Stock Exchange and Financial Regulatory Authority announced the launch of CORBEH, a regulated sandbox and innovation hub, to support innovative non-banking financial sector solutions. 

The sandbox is open to tech solutions across insurance, stock trading, statistical modeling, financial data analytics, and processing, but not limited to that.