• Saudi Arabia-based fintech NearPay has raised $3.6 million in a pre-Series A funding round, led by Vision Ventures with participation from Hala Ventures, Arzan VC, Palm Ventures and a number of angel investors. 
• Founded in 2020 by Mohammed Alaiban and Hamzah Alghamdi, NearPay provides infrastructure for financial payments starting with a soft point of sale (POS) solution.
• The funding will be used to enhance Nearpay’s offering as well as expand its team.

Press release:

October 3rd, 2022, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: NearPay, a Saudi financial infrastructure technology company has closed $ 3.6 million in pre-Series A  funding round led by Vision Ventures, with participation by Hala Ventures,  Arzan VC, Palm Ventures along with prominent angel investors. 

NearPay was established in 2020 by Mohammad Alaiban and Hamzah  Alghamdi with the purpose of innovating payment solutions that make life easier for everyone. It partners with merchant service providers (MSPs),  payment service providers (PSPs) and startups to enable easy mobile-based soft point of sale (softPOS) services. Their in-house built fintech solutions earned Kernel certificates for all internationally acclaimed and locally accepted payment networks including, Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and Mada. Additionally, they obtained all security certificates for all payment networks as well as the “MasterCard Level 3 MTip Certification” and “VISA level 3 Certification”. 

Worthy to mention, NearPay is the only company that has the above Kernel and security certificates regionally, which gives it an edge over potential competition.

They recently launched “softPOS”, a product that allows merchants to securely accept payments through their mobile phones without the need for specialized hardware such as a payment terminal. The market demand for such solutions is growing rapidly. According to a finding by a Visa study in collaboration with Saudi Payments; contactless payments adoption in Saudi Arabia grew from 4 per cent in 2017 to 94 per cent by the end of 2020.

Mohammad Alaiban, the co-founder and CEO of NearPay said: “The field of payments infrastructure is one of the most promising areas in the upcoming years. What differentiates this field specifically is the ability to innovate in tailoring payment solutions that suit the local and regional markets without having to depend on ready-made technologies from abroad. This in turn localizes technologies which are in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. I would like to thank Saudi Payments for their continuous support, which helped us reach where we are today. I would also like to thank our investors for believing in our team, the company, and our capabilities which will enable us to achieve what we aspire to in the coming period”. 

Hamzah Alghamdi, NearPay’s co-founder and chief technology officer added: “The localization of financial technology and the development of competencies that will be able to compete with internationally leading companies in the field of financial technology is one of the main goals of  NearPay. The company has established its goals by obtaining certificates from Visa and MasterCard which enabled NearPay-powered devices on any operating system to receive payments without the need for specialized high-cost devices or even the presence of an Internet sim card for financial payments. These advancements allow payment providers to reduce expenses and increase the number of devices needed to be supported and sold to merchants.”

Kais Al Essa, the Founding Partner and CEO of Vision Ventures further commented: “Mohammed’s and Hamzah’s passion and commitment towards creating home-grown cutting-edge technology infrastructure company has become a reality. We are proud to support them in their journey as they are now empowering MSPs and PSPs to quickly go to market without much development. The benefits to the economy realized cause us to believe that  NearPay will be a major infrastructure technology service provider to recon  with, not only in Saudi Arabia but in the region very soon.” 

The shift from specialized payment devices to softPOS powered by NearPay on any NFC-enabled smart device will have a substantial impact on making contactless payments available everywhere at much lower costs with an easier expansion plan than any time before. 

NearPay announced that until now, it had signed over 15 business clients between MSPs and PSPs with some of the most well-known names in the market. 

The current funding will be used to enhance the company’s offering as well as expand the team to cope with the growing demand for NearPay’s services.