Business

Stitch, a fintech infrastructure platform focused on modernising financial institutions, has announced the completion of a $25 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), marking the venture capital firm’s first investment in the GCC region.

The latest funding round brings Stitch’s total funding to $35 million and included participation from existing investors including Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC.

Focused on Modernising Financial Infrastructure

Founded to address outdated banking and financial technology systems, Stitch positions itself as a unified cloud-native operating system for modern financial institutions.

The company said many global banks and financial organisations continue to rely on fragmented legacy infrastructure despite spending more than $1 trillion on digital transformation initiatives over the past three years.

According to Stitch, financial institutions globally spend nearly $700 billion annually on technology, yet many still face significant challenges when launching products, upgrading systems, or adopting AI technologies.

Mohamed Oueida said the company was built to solve long-standing infrastructure limitations within the financial sector.

“Financial institutions globally run on fragmented, legacy infrastructure that should have been left behind 20 years ago. Now every institution wants to adopt AI, but AI on top of broken infrastructure is a dead end,” Oueida stated.

He added that Stitch was designed to provide financial institutions with a modern and scalable foundation capable of supporting future AI transformation.

Unified Financial Operating System

The Stitch platform enables banks and financial institutions to manage:

1. Lending operations
2. Payment systems
3. Card infrastructure
4. Financial ledgers
5. Core financial records

through a single integrated cloud-native stack.

The company noted that institutions can adopt its services gradually through modular deployment, avoiding the need to fully replace legacy systems immediately.

Rapid Growth Across GCC, Africa and Asia

Stitch reported significant growth over the past year, stating that:

1. Customer numbers increased 10-fold during 2025
2. Revenue grew 20 times over the same period
3. More than $5 billion in transactions were processed on the platform within the last six months alone

The company currently operates across the GCC, Africa, and Southeast Asia, including markets such as Egypt and Kenya.

Its client portfolio includes:

1. Raya Financing
2. LuLu Exchange
3. Noqodi
4. Foodics

Stitch said it plans to continue expanding internationally with the long-term goal of supporting financial institutions globally.

a16z Highlights AI Infrastructure Opportunity

Alex Rampell said the investment reflects the growing importance of modern financial infrastructure in enabling AI adoption within the banking sector.

“Financial institutions are sitting on decades of infrastructure debt, and that debt is now the single biggest obstacle to AI adoption. What Stitch is building — a modern, unified system of record — is what makes everything else possible,” Rampell said.

The deal also signals increasing international investor interest in the GCC’s growing fintech and digital infrastructure ecosystem.

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