We are co-leading an investment in Tweeq, an emerging FinTech platform for money management and financial tools based out of Riyadh. With a rapidly developing FinTech regional ecosystem, we are excited about the sector and thrilled to join Tweeq as they reimagine FinTech across MENA with a product-first approach.
As financial regulators open the doors to challengers and innovators, the region is destined to witness the same shift that swept the financial sectors in Europe, China, and India. What happened in South Korea is especially interesting: KaKaoBank, founded in 2016, reached 10m users by the end of 2019, while Toss, founded 2015, achieved 11m users by end of the same year. While that could be considered as a lot of entropy for a country of 51m (roughly the size of GCC), we believe that MENA will witness an even bigger shift, fueled by a younger population and increasingly progressive regulators.
At STV, we closely study the evolution of the FinTech sector in the region and its emerging players. We believe that there is a sizable opportunity to digitize the multi-billion dollar traditional financial services sector by providing hassle-free, intuitive financial products. We first met Tweeq last year and we immediately knew that we were looking at something unique. Tweeq is entering the space with a pan-MENA vision and a product-first mindset. The company recently announced its partnership with MasterCard and Paymentology as it continues to build a technology infrastructure that is on-par with global best practices.
The founders, Saeed AlBuhairi, Mohammed Faheem, Abdulaziz AlMalki, and Abdullah AlOtaibi, bring together a rare combination of domain expertise and deep technical knowledge. We are thrilled to join them in their journey along with Raed Ventures. We invite you to join the waiting list today by downloading Tweeq through the app stores of Apple and Google Play to be among the first to access Tweeq’s services.