$2.9 million for Rize to expand Rent Now Pay Later across KSA

🗝️ Here’s Rize! The Saudi-based proptech platform providing a rent-now-pay-later solution that allows tenants across KSA to pay their rent in flexible monthly instalments.

And they just secured a $2.9 million Seed round!

• Co-founded in 2021 by Ibrahim Balilah and Mohammed AlFraihi, the platform currently has a user base of over 16,000 users across KSA.

💰 Investor lowdown: This round was supported by Seedra Ventures, Hala Ventures, JOA Capital, RZM Investments, Bonat Investments, and Nama Ventures, along with a group of angel investors. 

• Rize has also secured additional capital through debt financing from various sources, to bolster its investments in the real estate sector.

🤸‍♀️ Not so flexible

Nearly 70% of residential rental contracts in Saudi Arabia are structured on an annual or semi-annual basis.

This less flexible model often places a heavy financial burden on tenants, making it difficult for many, particularly young professionals and growing families, to manage their cash flows effectively.

🔑 Rizing to the challenge

Rize switches things up enabling tenants to rent any unit of their choice and pay their lease in flexible monthly instalments, rather than the traditional lump-sum payments.

• It also streamlines property rentals through unified Ejari contracts, an electronic system by Saudi Arabia's Real Estate General Authority, ensuring transparent transactions.

👪 For tenants? A user-friendly platform offers ease of leasing, flexibility with monthly payments to match income cycles, and affordability by reducing upfront costs.

🔑 For landlords? Receiving full lease term rent upfront ensures stability, more attractive listings boost demand for quicker occupancies, and Ejar provides a streamlined approach to lease management and payments.

The result: A win-win - tenants get financial flexibility, and landlords can entice and retain more applicants in an ever-competitive market.

• Did we mention that their rental solutions are fully Shariah compliant?

🔮 Flashforward: 

Rize will use the fresh funding to fuel its expansion across KSA.

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