The UAE is home to most of its customers, and people from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait form the bulk of its international customer base.
Entering Saudi ArabiaStake claims it has surpassed Dubai-based fractional property investment platforms like Smartcrowd, but it will be starting afresh in Saudi Arabia.
Property investment companies therefore set up special purpose vehicles through which they let investors buy real estate.
“Saudi Arabia has properties that are recently completed and under development that are worth billions.
We are going to use [our] experience to offer a similar unified product for investment in Saudi Arabia within the same app,” Mahmassani said.
Lucid Motors is raising another $1 billion from its biggest financial backer, Saudi Arabia, as it looks to blunt the high costs associated with building and selling its luxury electric sedan.
The fresh funding comes just a few weeks after Lucid told investors that it only plans to build around 9,000 of its Air electric vehicles this year, a slight bump over last year’s output.
It lost $2.8 billion in 2023 and finished the year with just shy of $1.4 billion in cash and equivalents.
Lucid also plans to start building its electric Gravity SUV at the end of this year.
Lucid announced the investment less than three weeks after CEO Peter Rawlinson told the Financial Times that he was wary of relying too heavily on Saudi Arabia to keep shoveling money into its proverbial furnace.
Saudi Arabia is poised to become one of the largest global construction hubs owing to its trillion-dollar infrastructure and the real estate projects that are underway in the country.
BRKZ is today emerging from stealth backed by a $8 million Series A round co-led by Beco Capital and 9900 Capital.
Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures, Knollwood Investment Advisory, RZM Investment and MISY Ventures also participated in the round.
Following the fresh capital injection, the B2B marketplace aims to expand in Saudi Arabia and the MENA region to facilitate contractors in procuring materials and manufacturers in selling, with a focus on same or next-day delivery.
He added that the startup can process commonly ordered building materials within minutes, but more time is required for “specialized materials”.
Lucid Motors delivered only 6,001 of the 8,428 cars it built last year, as it continues to struggle to generate demand for its luxury electric sedans.
Lucid also said in late 2023 that it had shipped 800 cars to Saudi Arabia to be assembled at a new facility in the Kingdom.
In total, Lucid’s 2023 production and sales figures were only marginally better than they were in 2022, where it built 7,180 cars and delivered 4,369 of them.
The disappointing sales figures cap a tough year for Lucid.
This story has been updated to note that Lucid Motors declined to comment on whether the 800 cars in Saudi Arabia were included in the delivery figures.
Tamara, a buy now pay later platform for consumers in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region, has raised $340 million in a financing C round that values the fintech at $1 billion.
Both startups, albeit competitors, highlight the surging growth in BNPL usage, particularly in Saudi Arabia, the market that makes up more than 80% of Tamara and Tabby’s customer base.
“Saudi Arabia and the GCC deserves its place on the world stage for financial technology.
Before launching Tamara, Alsukhan co-founded Nana, a digital grocery shopping platform where he was the chief financial officer for three years.
Tamara is also allocating part of the investment to introduce new products and services beyond BNPL and capitalizing on opportunities in shopping and financial services across Saudi Arabia and the GCC.
