محمد يحي
- Saudi-based fintech infrastructure platform Stitch raises $25 million in Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
- The round included participation from existing investors Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC.
- The investment marks Andreessen Horowitz’s first entry into the GCC region, bringing Stitch’s total funding to $35 million.
The investment marks the first Gulf-region deal for fintech-focused venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), in the Riyadh-based startup that offers a unified infrastructure platform for financial institutions globally.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia / Dubai, UAE – May 14, 2026 – Stitch, the company developing an operating system for modern financial institutions, has announced the closing of a $25 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), marking the firm’s first investment in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.
The round brings Stitch’s total funding to $35 million.
The round also included participation from existing investors Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC.
Despite financial institutions spending more than $1 trillion on digital transformation over the past three years, most still rely on fragmented and outdated infrastructure that has shaped the industry for decades.
Globally, banks spend nearly $700 billion annually on technology, yet launching a new product can still take years, while updating a single core system may risk disrupting operations.
As artificial intelligence reshapes industries, this infrastructure gap has become existential, as financial institutions cannot effectively adopt AI without trusted and clean data systems.
Stitch was founded by a team of executives with experience at organizations including the National Payments Corporation of India, FIS, Barclays, Santander, and Azentio Software, with the aim of building the technical foundation required for this transformation.
The platform offers financial institutions a unified cloud-native suite covering lending, cards, payments, and ledgers, with the ability to adopt modules gradually without replacing existing systems all at once.
Stitch enables financial institutions to achieve AI-powered transformation by replacing fragmented legacy infrastructure with a modern and reliable data and ledger system — a transformation long sought by institutions but difficult to achieve without the right infrastructure.
Mohammed Owaida, Founder and CEO of Stitch, said financial institutions worldwide still depend on fragmented infrastructure and legacy systems that should have been replaced more than 20 years ago.
HE add:
“Today, institutions want to adopt AI, but they are trying to build these technologies on top of infrastructure that is not designed for it and will not deliver the intended outcomes” .
He said:
“We built Stitch specifically to solve this gap, and we’re excited to welcome Andreessen Horowitz at this important stage of our journey.”
Transactions processed through the Stitch platform exceeded $5 billion over the past six months alone, while the company grew its customer base tenfold during 2025 and increased revenues by 20 times over the same period.
Stitch currently operates across GCC countries, Egypt, Kenya, and Southeast Asia. Its clients include Raya Financing, Lulu Exchange, Nuqodi, and Foodics. The company plans to continue expanding globally to serve financial institutions worldwide.
Alex Rampell, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said financial institutions operate on “layers of technical infrastructure accumulated over decades,” which have become one of the biggest barriers to AI adoption.
“What Stitch is building — a modern unified system — is what will make everything else possible,” he said, adding that the firm is excited to support the company and proud that this marks “our first investment in the region.”
The new funding will be used to accelerate product development, strengthen Stitch’s presence across the GCC and MENA region, and support its expansion into global markets.
