Saudi Arabia startups attract 95% of private debt as GCC demand for growth capital surges 8.2x YoY to $4.1B

Startups in Saudi Arabia captured roughly 95% of private debt deployed across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 2025, as demand for growth capital surged 8.2x year-on-year to $4.1 billion, new regional data shows. Private debt — encompassing venture debt and growth credit — accounted for $4.1 billion of the $7.4 billion in tracked startup investments across the GCC last year, outpacing venture capital totals of $3.3 billion. Saudi Arabia led deployments with approximately $3.9 billion, followed by the UAE at about $211 million and Bahrain at $22 million.

“The GCC’s private debt market has moved from early exploration to institutional conviction. What stands out is not just the scale of deployment and participation of the region’s largest sovereign wealth funds, but the fact that credit is entering the capital stack earlier in the company lifecycle, especially across fintech and asset-backed models. This reflects a market that is increasingly being underwritten with structure, rigour, and long-term intent and our commitment to have $500 AUM across the region by the end of 2028,” said Fariha Ansari Javed, Partner, GCC & Global Capital Formation, Stride Ventures.

The expansion of private debt in the GCC is being driven by growing use of non-dilutive capital to support expansion, acquisitions, lending-book growth and platform scale. Fintech dominated the private debt landscape, accounting for roughly 95.5% of total private debt deployment — about $3.9 billion — with additional activity recorded in agritech, proptech, SaaS and logistics.

Key large-ticket transactions highlighted in the report include:

• Tamara — $2.4 billion
• Lendo — $740 million
• Deem — $400 million
• CredibleX — $100 million
• Kitopi — $50 million
• Octa — $20 million
• Erad — $33 million

Market participants and regional institutions have been central to enabling these structured-credit flows. The deployment uptick is closely tied to backing from sovereign and quasi-sovereign funds and regulatory developments that make earlier-stage credit transactions viable. Prominent regional financial institutions named in the analysis include Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Jada Fund of Funds and Sanabil Investments, alongside the UAE’s Mubadala and ADQ.

Stride Ventures, which produced the GCC edition of its Global Private Debt Report 2026, positions itself as an active platform in the region: the firm operates eight offices across India, the GCC and Southeast Asia, manages seven funds denominated in INR, USD and GBP, and has enabled over $1.6 billion in credit globally while partnering with nearly 200 high-growth companies.

Analysts say the widening role of structured credit is reshaping financing paths in the GCC. Rather than following a sequential equity-first model, founders are increasingly layering credit alongside equity from Series A through pre-IPO rounds. This trend is particularly pronounced among fintechs and asset-backed models that require continual access to capital to finance lending books, receivables and other growth assets.

Looking ahead, the interplay of sovereign capital, regulatory enablement and fintech expansion is expected to support further large-scale structured credit deals in 2026 and beyond, reinforcing private debt as a primary driver of scale for the region’s startups rather than a supplementary funding source.