Saudi Arabia-based fintech Stream has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Outliers VC, with participation from BYLD Ventures and several angel investors including Careem co-founder Abdullah Elyas, as it looks to automate how businesses across MENA bill, collect, and reconcile payments.
Founded in 2024 by Ibrahim Aldlaigan, Stream provides a platform that helps businesses manage the entire billing and payment lifecycle, from issuing invoices and scheduling recurring payments to reconciliation and cash flow tracking, without relying on third-party apps. The company’s goal, Aldlaigan says, is to make getting paid in MENA as seamless as spending money.
“Most of the world’s innovation in payments has focused on how people spend,” Aldlaigan said. “We’re focused on how businesses get paid. This round helps us build the tools and infrastructure that make that as easy in MENA as it is anywhere else.”
Stream’s product already serves thousands of merchants and powers millions of dollars in monthly payments, growing at 40 percent month-on-month since launch. It first gained traction among early childhood education businesses before expanding into SaaS, school networks, and other service sectors. The company says it gives businesses control over how and when payments occur, whether one-time, recurring, or in instalments, solving one of the biggest friction points in a market where manual or semi-manual collections are still common.
According to the Saudi Central Bank’s 2023 Payments Usage Study, around 70 percent of retail transactions in Saudi Arabia are now digital, yet only 7 percent are recurring payments, leaving a vast opportunity for automation in sectors like education, rent, and subscriptions. Stream’s platform is designed to close that gap by enabling businesses to structure recurring payment flows with greater flexibility and predictability.
Outliers VC general partner Sarah AlSaleh said Stream’s advantage lies in “deep local insight and a clear understanding of how businesses actually operate,” adding that Aldlaigan’s blend of investor experience and product focus is accelerating the company’s evolution. BYLD founder Youcef Oudjidane echoed the sentiment, calling Stream’s execution “intense and technically excellent,” and predicting the rise of a future “Stream mafia” of MENA fintech talent.
The new funding will go toward expanding Stream’s engineering, compliance, and payments infrastructure, improving user experience, and supporting its growing customer base as it aims to become the backbone of modern recurring payments across the region.
