Saudi Fintech Vrtx Raises $3.6 Million Pre-Seed

Riyadh-based fintech Vrtx has raised $3.6 million in pre-seed funding from investors including SC Ventures by Standard Chartered, Sadu Capital, BYLD, Suhail Ventures, F6 Ventures, TAZ Investment and Palm Ventures.

Founded by Mishal Bin Slimah and Omar Shaaban, the company is building an embedded finance platform that brings together infrastructure and operational tools for wallets, payouts, card issuing, transfers and transaction processing.

The idea grew out of the founders’ previous work at Tweeq, where they saw how much technology, operations, compliance and security businesses need to assemble before launching even relatively simple financial products.

Vrtx has received in-principle approval from the Saudi Central Bank for an Electronic Money Institution licence. The company says its platform includes a secure testing environment, guided workflows and operational tools designed to help businesses move from product development to live financial services more quickly.

“Companies with a clear idea and real demand spend years assembling core infrastructure, operations and security before they serve a single customer,” Bin Slimah said. “Our goal is to make fintech capability a standard building block for any business.”

The funding will support Vrtx as it develops its platform and expands its role in Saudi Arabia’s growing embedded finance market.