XSquare Bets on Saudi Arabia as New Funding Opens a New Front in Gulf B2B Payments

UAE-based fintech XSquare has closed an undisclosed pre-seed funding round led by Raed Ventures, with participation from AngelSpark, 500 Global and Oraseya Capital, and is using the capital to accelerate regional expansion with Saudi Arabia as its next strategic target. Founded in 2023 by Tanveer Shah and Ashwin Shinoy, the startup says it is building a corporate payments orchestration platform that consolidates payment, collection and settlement operations across multiple channels and providers into a single system.

"The company operates at the intersection of fintech, banking, payments and trade finance—one of the fastest-growing areas of the Gulf’s digital economy."

XSquare’s platform currently integrates with payment service providers including Telr, Geidea, VaultsPay, Spare and Tess Payments, and the company plans to add more partners as it scales. The startup is positioning itself as an infrastructure player rather than a consumer-facing money-transfer app: its aim is to reduce fragmentation for large and medium-sized companies that typically maintain multiple bank and payment-provider relationships.

What XSquare offers and why it matters

XSquare describes its offering as a corporate payments orchestration layer that connects businesses to multiple payment channels so they do not have to develop separate integrations with every provider. The company is also working with Mastercard to roll out Mastercard’s corporate payments product, a solution that allows supplier payments to be funded through cards and settled directly into bank accounts. XSquare says it is implementing the program with government entities and large corporations to access higher-value transactions.

• Founders: Tanveer Shah and Ashwin Shinoy
• Investors in round: Raed Ventures (lead), AngelSpark, 500 Global, Oraseya Capital
• Current markets: UAE and Qatar (presence at Qatar Financial Centre)
• Integration partners: Telr, Geidea, VaultsPay, Spare, Tess Payments

Context and competitive dynamics

Investors’ interest in the round reflects a broader shift in Gulf fintech toward business-focused financial infrastructure. Backers are betting that better orchestration of payments, collections and settlements can deliver material gains in cash-flow management and working capital for corporates operating across banks, currencies and markets. For XSquare, that means building both technology and an expanding network of banks and payment providers: the platform’s value rises with each new institution it connects.

But the company faces notable challenges. The market for corporate payments infrastructure is highly sensitive to security and regulatory compliance, and success depends on attracting and integrating a critical mass of banking and payments partners. XSquare plans to allocate the new funding to deepen partnerships with banks and payment providers and to strengthen its engineering and sales teams to address those hurdles.

Outlook — why Saudi Arabia matters

XSquare has already expanded from the UAE into Qatar and now aims to enter Saudi Arabia — a market described in its strategy as a major test of whether the business model can scale beyond the UAE. If XSquare can replicate its integrations and partnerships in Riyadh, it could stitch together a regional network across Gulf markets and position itself as the orchestration layer connecting businesses, banks and payment service providers.