Nuwa Capital has invested in baraka, a Dubai-based fintech startup on a mission to educate, enable and empower retail investors in the Middle East. The $4M seed round also includes Global Founders Capital, FJ Labs, Raptor Group, Tribe Capital, VentureSouq, and Class 5 Global. The company has officially launched its mobile investment app today, and has raised $5M to date.
With a global and regional rise in appetite for investing, the company is targeting a large and underserved segment of investors in the GCC, where current offerings are mostly directed towards higher income segments and remain mostly traditional and rigid, while international platforms are either inaccessible or costly.
baraka has received regulatory authorisation from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) in June 2021 and its commission-free investment app allows its users access to over 5,000 US-listed securities, including stocks, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and fractional shares, with no minimum investment requirement among multiple other features.
“baraka is leading the charge in transforming the way in which investors access global capital markets and is at the center of our thinking of how technology can reinvent entire sectors. We’re also especially privileged to be joining Feras who is singularly suited to take on this massive opportunity,” said Khaled Talhouni, managing partner at Nuwa Capital.
“We are incredibly proud to have Nuwa Capital on board as investors, especially given their deep understanding of Saudi Arabia, and to be part of their fast-growing portfolio. We’re really looking forward to the insights the Nuwa Capital team will be able to share as we continue to enhance our platform and scale across the region,” said Feras Jalbout, founder & CEO of baraka.
The team has already successfully built a large community through its content hub and daily market newsletter, and boasts a waitlist of over 10,000 users from across the Middle East, a testament to the large, unmet demand in the market.
The baraka app is available to all residents and citizens over the age of 18 in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait through the Apple App Store and Google Play.
