Mal, an Abu Dhabi-based Islamic digital bank, raised $230 million in the biggest ever seed round in the Gulf.
The bank is being led by Abdallah Abu-Sheikh — a UAE-based businessman who previously founded Botim, an internet calling app — with the financing round led by Abu Dhabi’s BlueFive Capital.
Mal says it will use artificial intelligence to help build mobile-first products set for launch later this year. So far the firm doesn’t have any banking licenses, and could initially offer unregulated fintech products while it waits for approval. Abu-Sheikh said he’s in talks with regulators in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan as well as the UAE as part of a plan to target the world’s two billion Muslims.
But the path will be difficult: Getting license approvals either directly from regulators or through acquiring existing banks can be “fraught with compliance and regulatory hurdles,” and capitalizing a new bank is an expensive proposition, Kristie Neo, a UAE-based VC and tech journalist, wrote on her Substack.