Alaan, the Middle East’s leading spend management platform, has raised $48 million in Series A funding led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA).
Other participants included the founders of 885 Capital, Y Combinator, 468 Capital, and Pioneer Fund — alongside prominent regional figures such as Hosam Arab (Tabby), Mudassir Sheikha (Careem), and YouTuber Khalid Al Ameri.
Co-founder and CEO Parthi Duraisamy, reflecting on his days at McKinsey, shared:
“I’d spend my weekends uploading receipts, reconciling every expense manually. It was a constant pain.”
That pain became the spark behind Alaan’s mission to revolutionize spend management for finance teams across MENA.
The round marks one of the largest Series A fundraises for a fintech in the region, rivaling deals like Saudi Arabia’s Tamara, which raised $110 million.
GV Ravishankar, Managing Director at Peak XV, commented:
“The category has demonstrated strong product-market fit in MENA, and Alaan stands out as the category leader. Their customer-centric and product-led mindset has enabled them to build solutions tailored to modern finance teams.”
Despite regulatory delays (nearly a year in the UAE, years in Saudi Arabia), Alaan launched in both markets and was the first to integrate Apple Pay for B2B finance teams.
In early 2023, the company also pioneered the use of OpenAI in Middle Eastern fintech, initially through a chatbot. But when that failed to resonate, the team pivoted — focusing instead on AI behind the scenes to power receipt matching, reconciliation, and VAT extraction.
These automations have already saved finance teams over 1.5 million manual hours.
Since launching in 2022, Alaan has processed 2.5+ million transactions for 1,500+ finance teams, including clients like G42, Careem, Tabby, and Lulu Group.
The startup is already profitable, having spent $5 million to generate $10 million in revenue.
“We are not in a market where size is an advantage. What matters is capital efficiency, revenue, and GTM execution,” said Duraisamy.
The new funding will accelerate expansion in Saudi Arabia, where the platform has doubled monthly transaction volume for six consecutive months, and will fuel hiring across sales, CS, and compliance, with deeper investment in AI-powered automation.
