We’re thrilled to announce our Series B lead investment in Lean Technologies, which we see as driving the next generation of financial innovation in MENA.
Doubling Down on Fintech
Financial inclusion has been a core pillar of GC’s investment philosophy. Our journey with path-breaking companies, across geographies, like Stripe, Ramp, Monzo, etc, has reinforced our belief that true financial innovation can:
- Radically re-define how an ecosystem operates
- Become a deep catalyst for growth of the overall economy
- Only be driven by founders who are unafraid of thinking beyond the status-quo
With our latest Fund, the vision is to continue partnering with ambitious fintech founders across geographies (established and emerging).
Our Thesis on MENA
We believe the region is emerging as a global hub. We also see a trend of high-quality founders and CXOs moving back to these countries and building local businesses from there. The governments and regulators have also announced reforms, incentives, and revised licensing regimes to support home-grown businesses. In our view, the region’s encouraging macroeconomic outlook, favorable demographics, and strong performance of its financial services industry provide positive conditions for growth of fintech businesses.
Enter Lean - a Pioneer in Fintech Infrastructure
Lean Technologies, a leading Fintech Infrastructure player in MENA, empowers businesses to securely access bank account data and process instant account-to-account (A2A) payments. By simplifying financial operations, Lean empowers Fintech companies and enterprises to enhance their payment workflows, offer personalized financial services by leveraging data, and improve customer experiences.
In its 5 year journey, Lean has been a pioneer, having co-built the data and payment modules with various merchants across wealth management, real estate, BNPL, remittances etc. With the rollout of Open Finance in the UAE and Open Banking payments in Saudi Arabia by 2025, we believe Lean is well-positioned to become a pivotal force in driving the growth of the region, providing essential infrastructure that enables businesses to seamlessly adopt and integrate new financial frameworks.
Stellar Team, Deep Customer Love
If we were to summarize our thesis of partnering with Lean in one line, it would revolve around team and customer loyalty.
Hemant has known Hisham, Co-founder and CEO of Lean, since his Stanford days. The passion and drive to create a deep impact in his native geography has stood out about Hisham since then.
Hisham and the core management team are deeply entrenched in what we consider the best ecosystem in the region, across regulators, governments, traditional industry and third-party merchants. This will be instrumental as they navigate an emerging market embarking on major new initiatives and reforms.
Their customers (third-party merchants) describe Lean as near-synonymous with open banking and instant payments. They are actively pushing Lean to their end customers and are working with the company to integrate/co-build further use cases. The aspects that stand out from the customer feedback include:
- Superlative product suite
- Customer centric approach
- Sharp, approachable, highly qualified and super professional team
- Flexibility and faster integration
We are thrilled to continue our focus on the exciting and emerging MENA region through our partnership with a category creating company like Lean. We look forward to building on our learnings and further expanding our presence in the region.
