Goldman Sachs-backed Saudi buy now pay later (BNPL) startup Tamara, has attained unicorn status, after it successfully secured $340 million in a series C funding round, pushing its valuation to $1 Billion.
The funding round was led by Saudi Arabian asset manager SNB Capital and Sanabil Investments, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the public investment fund.
Other participants included Shorooq Partners, Pinnacle Capital, Impulse, and existing investors such as checkout.com.
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Tamara disclosed that the funds raised will be used to fund new products and services, going beyond BNPL, to take advantage of opportunities in shopping, payments, and banking services in Saudi Arabia.
The startup disclosed that achieving a unicorn status is a significant opportunity in a financial services market that is underpenetrated and underserved.
Tamara’s Co-founder and Chief Executive Abdulmajeed Alsukhan commenting on the company achieving a unicorn status said,
“Saudi Arabia deserves its place on the world stage for financial technology. As we set our sights on becoming the next big giant in shopping, payments, and banking we remain ever grateful for the significant opportunity in this unprecedented and underserved banking and financial services landscape”.
He added that this achievement is a testament to the ecosystem, to the company’s incredible team, investors, and the collaborative spirit that makes the region a great place for talent to flourish.
Tamara’s latest equity funding round comes after a debt-raising move last month led by Goldman Sachs and Shorooq Partners. The BNPL company operates in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait, and has more than 10 million users and more than 30,000 partner merchants.
Founded in 2020 by Alsukhan alongside Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Al Babtain, Tamara was the first company to be granted a permit to provide BNPL solutions from SAMA and to graduate from its inaugural regulatory sandbox and has over 500 employees across its headquarters in Riyadh and other cities, including Dubai, Berlin, and Ho Chi Minh City.
The three-year-old fintech’s primary revenue stream is derived from merchant discount rates. This approach, commonly employed by local and global BNPL providers, contributes significant value by improving conversion rates and increasing the average order value for merchants.
With Tamara, users can shop and split their payments, No late fees. The startup payment solutions are completely Sharia-compliant.
Notably, Tamara is the leading shopping and payments platform in Saudi Arabia and the GCC region, with a mission to empower people in their daily lives and change how they shop, pay, and bank.