Kholoud Hussein
For decades, the Saudi economy was defined by scale. Large oil companies, government spending and mega-projects shaped the Kingdom’s economic landscape, while small and medium-sized enterprises remained an important but comparatively secondary component of the private sector.
That equation is changing.
Across Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and the Kingdom’s emerging economic centers, a new generation of entrepreneurs is building businesses that are increasingly embedded in the infrastructure of the Saudi economy. They are developing payment systems, digitizing commerce, creating logistics networks, transforming healthcare delivery, developing artificial-intelligence applications, supporting tourism and entertainment, and providing technology to businesses that previously had limited access to sophisticated digital services.
The significance of this transformation goes well beyond the number of startups being created. Saudi Arabia is gradually building an entrepreneurial economy in which SMEs are becoming employers, technology providers, suppliers, exporters and, increasingly, investment assets in their own right.
By the end of the third quarter of 2025, the Kingdom had 1.7 million commercial registrations, while SMEs employed more than 8.4 million people, according to Monsha’at. The scale of the business base is particularly notable when compared with the roughly 429,000 SMEs recorded in 2016, according to data cited in a 2026 Saudi British Bank analysis of the National Transformation Program.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia has emerged as the Middle East and North Africa’s leading venture-capital market. Saudi startups attracted a record $1.72 billion across 257 transactions in 2025, marking a 145% increase in funding from the previous year and the highest level ever recorded for a single MENA market, according to MAGNiTT data sponsored by Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC).
Those numbers point to a profound shift: the Kingdom is no longer simply trying to encourage people to establish businesses. It is attempting to create companies capable of scaling, attracting institutional capital, generating employment, solving structural economic gaps and eventually becoming major economic actors.
From Vision 2030 beneficiaries to economic contributors
The transformation of the SME sector has been embedded in Saudi Arabia’s economic strategy from the beginning of Vision 2030.
Monsha’at, established in 2016 to regulate, support and develop the SME sector, has been tasked with helping raise SMEs’ contribution to GDP from around 20% to 35% by 2030. The authority identifies three structural challenges—human capabilities, government bureaucracy and access to financing—as central issues that need to be addressed if smaller businesses are to become a larger force in the economy.
The target is important because it changes the definition of economic diversification.
Diversification is not simply about replacing one large source of national income with another. A genuinely diversified economy requires thousands of businesses operating across different industries, sizes and geographies. It requires suppliers supporting larger companies, technology businesses serving traditional industries, consumer companies creating new demand, and entrepreneurs transforming previously fragmented markets.
That is where SMEs become particularly important.
Large companies can invest billions of riyals in a new industrial facility or infrastructure project, but SMEs create the ecosystem around those investments. They supply services, develop specialized technologies, provide logistics, recruit talent, build software and create new business models.
In other words, the economic value of SMEs is not limited to what they produce themselves; it also lies in what they enable other companies to produce.
This multiplier effect is becoming increasingly visible in Saudi Arabia.
Building an ecosystem around entrepreneurs
Saudi Arabia's rise as a startup hub has not been driven by venture capital alone. The Kingdom has spent years building a support architecture designed to address the practical barriers that can prevent startups from reaching scale.
Monsha’at’s Business Accelerators program provides startups with workspaces, consultancy, training, financial grants and access to investor networks, with programs designed to accelerate business development over periods of three to six months.
That support has also expanded beyond technology.
Monsha’at’s Dates Business Accelerator, for example, targets the entire dates value chain—from cultivation and harvesting to processing, packaging, marketing and sales. The program has recruited more than 175 startups, delivered more than 30 workshops and programs, facilitated more than 115 deals and partnerships, and provided more than 1,000 consulting hours.
The message is significant: Saudi Arabia is not attempting to build a startup ecosystem limited to fintech and mobile applications. It is increasingly trying to use entrepreneurship to modernize traditional sectors as well.
That approach is visible in tourism, healthcare, logistics, education, entertainment, agriculture and pilgrimage services.
In October 2025, Monsha’at launched a dedicated Hajj and Umrah entrepreneurship track designed to help entrepreneurs identify opportunities in pilgrim services and develop innovative solutions to improve the visitor experience.
The approach effectively turns some of the Kingdom’s largest economic transformation programs into markets for entrepreneurs.
A new tourism destination creates demand for booking platforms, hospitality technology, transportation solutions, event companies, food businesses and digital services. Expanding healthcare infrastructure creates demand for healthtech companies and specialized service providers. Growing logistics activity creates opportunities for supply-chain technology, last-mile delivery and warehouse solutions.
The result is a powerful relationship between mega-project investment and SME formation.
Financing is becoming less of a bottleneck
For many years, financing was one of the biggest constraints facing Saudi SMEs. The problem was not necessarily a shortage of business ideas; it was the difficulty of converting those ideas into companies capable of surviving and scaling.
The financial ecosystem has changed substantially.
SVC, established in 2018, was created specifically to stimulate financing for startups and SMEs from the pre-seed stage through pre-IPO. Its investment model includes venture-capital funds, private equity, venture debt and private credit, alongside direct investments.
By the first half of 2025, SVC had backed 59 private-capital funds that supported more than 900 startups and SMEs.
The effect is broader than the capital committed by SVC itself. The organization’s role is increasingly that of a catalyst, helping attract private and institutional investors into the market and reducing some of the risk associated with investing in younger businesses.
The acceleration became particularly visible in 2025.
Saudi Arabia deployed $860 million in venture capital during the first six months of 2025, more than the entire amount invested during 2024. The number of transactions reached 114, up 31% year-on-year. E-commerce accounted for 36% of capital deployed, while fintech led by number of deals with 30 transactions.
By the end of the year, the market had reached the $1.72 billion record.
That trajectory suggests that the Kingdom's challenge is gradually changing. The question is no longer simply whether entrepreneurs can find capital. It is whether the ecosystem can produce enough investment-ready companies with sustainable revenues and regional or global growth potential to absorb the increasing pool of capital.
The startups filling the gaps
The strongest argument for the economic importance of Saudi startups comes from the problems they are solving.
Fintech is perhaps the clearest example.
Companies such as Tamara emerged from a gap between rapidly changing consumer behavior and the traditional financial system. What began as a buy-now-pay-later platform evolved into a broader financial-services business serving consumers and merchants.
In February 2025, Tamara raised $160 million in Series E financing at a valuation of $3.3 billion, demonstrating the scale of value that Saudi-born financial technology companies can create.
The company's growth is important not simply because of its valuation. It demonstrates how a startup can develop from solving a relatively narrow consumer problem into building financial infrastructure around a much larger ecosystem of merchants and customers.
The same logic applies to Lean Technologies, which has focused on financial infrastructure rather than consumer lending.
Lean provides open-banking and financial-data infrastructure that enables fintech companies and businesses to connect with bank accounts and build financial services more efficiently. Its development reflects a broader trend: Saudi startups are increasingly building the plumbing underneath the digital economy, rather than simply creating consumer-facing applications.
That distinction matters.
An application may have thousands or millions of users. Infrastructure companies can potentially enable thousands of other businesses to serve millions of users.
The economic multiplier can therefore be much larger.
The rise of B2B startups
Another major opportunity is emerging in business-to-business commerce.
Saudi Arabia's SME economy is large and increasingly sophisticated, but smaller businesses have historically faced challenges in procurement, inventory management, working capital, logistics and access to large suppliers.
This has created opportunities for B2B platforms.
Saudi startup Sary, for example, built its business around digitizing procurement and connecting businesses with suppliers. Its subsequent combination with ShopUp created SILQ Group, with the combined business raising $110 million from investors including Valar Ventures and Sanabil Investments.
The importance of companies such as Sary is not simply their own growth. B2B platforms can make thousands of smaller companies more efficient by lowering procurement costs, improving access to suppliers and bringing previously fragmented transactions onto digital platforms.
That creates another multiplier effect.
The startup becomes an economic intermediary, while its customers become more productive.
This is precisely the type of entrepreneurship that can accelerate SME productivity and help the wider private sector become more competitive.
Saudi Arabia becomes a magnet for international capital
Perhaps the most important signal that Saudi Arabia has become a genuine startup hub is the behavior of foreign investors.
International capital is increasingly entering the Kingdom not simply because of government incentives, but because investors see a combination of market size, high digital adoption, strong consumer spending, government-backed transformation programs and a growing pipeline of scalable companies.
In 2025, Saudi Arabia accounted for the largest share of venture capital investment in MENA, with international investors becoming an increasingly important part of the funding landscape. MAGNiTT data showed that the Kingdom attracted $1.72 billion across 257 deals, reinforcing its position as the region’s largest VC market for the third consecutive year.
The significance of this capital extends beyond individual funding rounds.
International investors bring networks, technology, management expertise and access to overseas markets. Their involvement can help Saudi startups move from being domestic businesses to regional companies.
That transition could become one of the defining features of the next stage of the ecosystem.
Saudi Arabia is a large market on its own, but the real opportunity for many startups lies in using the Kingdom as a launchpad into the broader GCC, MENA and, for selected technology businesses, global markets.
The government is actively encouraging this direction. In late 2025, Monsha’at took Saudi startups to international technology events including Slush in Helsinki and Web Summit Lisbon, connecting entrepreneurs with international investors, partners and innovation ecosystems.
This represents a shift in policy ambition—from bringing capital to Saudi Arabia to helping Saudi companies reach capital and customers abroad.
Artificial intelligence could redefine the next generation
If fintech and e-commerce dominated much of the Kingdom’s early startup-growth story, artificial intelligence could define its next phase.
Saudi Arabia is increasingly trying to establish itself as an AI market, infrastructure hub and development center simultaneously.
The country's startup-support infrastructure is adapting accordingly. In June 2026, Monsha’at announced the graduation of 33 AI startups from the first cohort of its AI incubator program, developed in partnership with the National Technology Development Program.
The startups operated across eight areas, including enterprise solutions, healthcare, tourism and culture, fintech, infrastructure and logistics, e-commerce and education.
This is important because AI is not being treated as an isolated technology sector. Instead, it is being positioned as a horizontal technology capable of transforming almost every part of the SME economy.
A logistics startup can use AI to optimize routes. A healthtech company can use it for diagnostics or administrative automation. A financial company can use it for fraud detection and credit assessment. A tourism business can use it for personalization and demand forecasting.
That creates the possibility of a second-order effect: AI startups do not simply become companies themselves; they can increase the productivity of thousands of other companies.
The challenge now is scaling, not starting
Saudi Arabia has made remarkable progress in creating businesses and attracting capital. But the next stage will be more difficult.
Creating a startup is relatively straightforward compared with turning it into a company capable of generating sustainable profits, employing hundreds or thousands of people, expanding internationally and returning capital to investors.
This is where the Kingdom's ecosystem will be tested.
The record $1.72 billion in venture capital investment in 2025 is impressive, but funding is not an end in itself. Capital must eventually translate into revenue, productivity, employment, exports and returns.
There are encouraging signs.
A joint 2026 report by Endeavor Saudi Arabia and SVC found that 77% of surveyed founders are considering an IPO, while 91% of those considering an IPO prefer to list on the Saudi Exchange, Tadawul. The report points to an emerging pipeline of venture-backed companies moving toward public markets.
That could prove transformative.
A mature startup ecosystem requires exits. Successful IPOs and acquisitions return money to investors, create experienced entrepreneurs and executives, generate new pools of capital, and demonstrate to the next generation of founders that building a high-growth company can produce significant economic value.
Endeavor's analysis estimates a potential pipeline of four to 12 additional venture-backed IPOs in Saudi Arabia under different scenarios. If only half of the potential listings materialize, the market capitalization represented by venture-backed public companies could increase significantly.
This could mark the beginning of a new cycle in which Saudi capital markets increasingly become part of the startup ecosystem rather than remaining a destination only for mature corporations.
Where will the next investment wave go?
The investment opportunity is also becoming broader. While fintech remains one of the strongest sectors, Saudi venture investment is increasingly flowing toward e-commerce, AI, logistics, healthcare, education, tourism and other sectors aligned with the Kingdom's diversification strategy.
In the first half of 2025, e-commerce attracted the largest share of venture capital by value, while fintech recorded the highest number of transactions.
Future capital is likely to become increasingly concentrated around businesses capable of demonstrating three characteristics: real demand, scalable economics and strategic relevance.
Artificial intelligence and deep technology are particularly well positioned. Healthcare and healthtech are likely to benefit from demographic and infrastructure changes. Tourism and entertainment will continue to create new markets as visitor numbers and domestic consumption expand. Logistics and industrial technology will benefit from the Kingdom's ambition to become a global trade and supply-chain hub.
Meanwhile, growth-stage companies are likely to attract more private equity and structured capital as they move beyond the startup phase.
The direction is already visible. SVC has expanded beyond traditional venture capital into private equity, venture debt and private credit, reflecting the growing need for financing options across different stages of company development.
This diversification of financing is critical.
A company should not have to rely on equity funding at every stage of its life. As Saudi businesses mature, debt, growth equity, private equity and eventually public markets can provide alternative sources of capital.
The next economic engine will be measured by productivity
Saudi Arabia's SME revolution should therefore not be measured only by the number of startups established or billions of dollars raised. The more important question is what these companies are doing to the structure of the economy. Are they making businesses more productive? Are they reducing transaction costs? Are they creating skilled jobs? Are they bringing women and young people into entrepreneurship? Are they developing intellectual property? Are they creating companies capable of exporting Saudi technology and services? And, ultimately, are they producing sustainable financial returns?
There are already signs of progress.
The Kingdom's entrepreneurial activity rate rose from 12.1% in 2018 to 28.9% in 2025, while entrepreneurial intentions increased from 26.8% to 48.5%, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2025–2026 report. Saudi Arabia ranked third globally in the National Entrepreneurship Context Index and led high-income economies in entrepreneurial finance.
Those figures reveal something deeper than a rise in company registrations. They indicate a change in economic culture.
Entrepreneurship is becoming a mainstream economic pathway rather than a niche activity. Young Saudis are increasingly seeing company-building as a career, while international founders and investors are viewing the Kingdom as a market in which companies can be built at scale.
That cultural shift may ultimately prove as important as the financial incentives.
From ecosystem to economic force
Saudi Arabia's SME sector has reached an inflection point. The Kingdom now has the scale of businesses, capital, institutional infrastructure and market demand required to create a self-reinforcing entrepreneurial ecosystem. The challenge is to convert that scale into durable companies.
The government has built much of the foundation: Monsha’at has expanded support programs; SVC has helped develop private-capital markets; regulatory reforms have made it easier to establish and operate businesses; accelerators and incubators are helping companies develop; and Vision 2030 projects are creating new markets.
Private investors are now adding another layer. The record $1.72 billion in venture capital investment in 2025 shows that the market has moved beyond experimentation. International investors are entering, Saudi funds are becoming more sophisticated, and founders are beginning to think about IPOs rather than only their next funding round.
But the real measure of success will come over the next decade.
If today's startups can evolve into tomorrow's major employers, technology providers, exporters and listed companies, SMEs could become one of the most important mechanisms through which Saudi Arabia converts Vision 2030's investment cycle into a sustainable private-sector economy.
The Kingdom's transformation, in that sense, is moving from a story about building projects to building companies.
And that may be the most important economic shift of all.
The future Saudi economy will still contain major corporations and large-scale investments. But around them will increasingly sit a dense network of entrepreneurs—fintech companies supporting financial inclusion, logistics startups connecting businesses, AI companies raising productivity, healthtech ventures improving services, tourism startups creating experiences, and B2B platforms making SMEs more competitive.
