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We’re excited to announce our investment in ClearGrid, having backed the company since its pre-seed round and co-led its seed round, bringing its total funding to $10m.

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Sometimes in VC, investment decisions can get heated – passions run high, opinions clash, and we find ourselves split on whether to pull the trigger. I can easily say, this wasn’t one of those times. In fact, our initial commitment to ClearGrid took all of two minutes. 

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We’ve known ClearGrid’s CEO and co-founder, Mohammed Al Zaben, for nearly a decade, and put simply, some bets don’t require overthinking. We backed his previous startup, MUNCH:ON, where he demonstrated resilience, adaptability, and true leadership – qualities that became even more evident when COVID-19 turned his business model upside down overnight. Zaben didn’t falter – he pivoted strategically, doubled down on KSA, prioritized his team’s well-being, and ultimately orchestrated an exit to Careem. Witnessing this firsthand left no doubt in our minds: we need to back him again. 

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But while this was an ‘easy’ decision, what made us truly bullish – what compelled us to double down – is not just what Zaben and his co-founders Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud, and Mohammed Khalili are building today, but what ClearGrid can become tomorrow.

The problem ClearGrid is solving today

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The GCC is undergoing an economic boom– driven by a sharp influx of global talent, massive infrastructure investments, and rapidly growing consumer spending, fueling explosive growth in consumer and SME borrowing. Over the past few months alone, we’ve seen at least five GCC-based fintech lenders receive term sheets for nine-figure credit facilities from global powerhouses like J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. These moves underline a huge global appetite to lend into our region, reinforced by a dollarized economy, relatively lower default rates – thanks to stringent laws around bounced checks – and employer-backed visa systems where residency status is contingent on financial responsibility.

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However, despite this lending boom, debt recovery methods remain surprisingly outdated. Traditional approaches – call centers, manual outreach, paperwork – aren’t just inefficient; they actively damage borrower relationships through confrontational tactics and yield erratic recovery results.

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ClearGrid flips this outdated model, addressing an overlooked, deeply entrenched operational headache for lenders: debt collection. The company deploys predictive analytics and borrower-centric automation to fundamentally transform the collections process. Rather than using scripted calls or generic emails, ClearGrid identifies borrower behaviors, such as partial payment tendencies or specific repayment cycles, to offer tailored repayment schedules. For instance, rather than chasing someone who misses a payment through repetitive, ineffective outreach, ClearGrid might suggest structured repayment solutions aligned precisely with that borrower’s salary cycle or cash flow. This approach doesn’t merely cut collection costs dramatically (often by half) or boost recovery rates substantially – it redefines the lender-borrower relationship as a collaborative rather than adversarial dynamic.

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And the results speak for themselves. Since launch, ClearGrid has managed hundreds of millions in debt portfolios, driving tangible results: a major UAE bank boosted recovery rates by 30% while cutting collection costs in half, and a leading BNPL provider doubled recoveries by automating early-stage debt resolution.

Why fixing collections is crucial (and why it’s just the beginning)

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At first glance, you might wonder why we’re placing such emphasis on collections – the seemingly mundane final stage of the lending cycle. But consider this: collections are precisely where banks and fintech lenders struggle the most as they rapidly scale.

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This struggle isn’t accidental – it’s a consequence of the lending boom outpacing lenders’ internal capacities. Banks have long favored predictable ‘prime’ borrowers – salaried employees and large conglomerates with clear financial visibility. While this approach offers stability, it often misjudges true creditworthiness. Even today, it’s easier for a salaried employee to secure a loan or mortgage in the GCC than it is for a successful business owner with fluctuating but strong revenue – a bizarrely outdated and inefficient reality.

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This isn’t just an oversight; it’s a structural issue. Banks in the GCC have little incentive to adapt their underwriting models to accommodate SMEs or entrepreneurs. Their cost structures are built around servicing large corporate clients and prime borrowers, leaving a massive gap in the market. VC-backed fintechs rushed in to fill this void – BNPL players like Tabby and Tamara, invoice factoring platforms, and revenue-based financiers. 

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Yet, despite branding themselves as disruptors, these fintech lenders are still stuck in the past when it comes to collections. New-age lending is still relying on old-age collections. And as they scale, rising delinquency rates and inefficient recovery processes are exposing this fundamental weakness. That’s exactly where ClearGrid comes in.

But the story gets even more exciting as we look forward 

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ClearGrid’s collection operations aren’t just solving a cost or recovery issue; they’re creating a vast, standardized dataset on borrower behavior that previously never existed in this region. Think about it: lenders today largely operate in data silos, each with fragmented insight into borrower repayment patterns. The credit bureaus help, but their coverage is limited, incomplete, and doesn’t truly offer actionable real-time insights. ClearGrid, integrated across multiple banks and fintechs, is uniquely positioned to become the central repository of real-time repayment intelligence.

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With this data in hand, ClearGrid doesn’t have to limit itself to helping lenders collect debts – it can actively start buying and rehabilitating distressed loan portfolios from financial institutions. Banks and fintechs struggling to manage or properly price distressed assets can offload these loan books to ClearGrid, whose predictive analytics can accurately value them and determine recovery potential. This transforms ClearGrid from merely a service provider into a buyer and investor in distressed debt – a role no one else is effectively playing today in the GCC.

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This sets the stage for an even bigger transformation. In developed financial markets – take the U.S. as an example – debt isn’t just originated and held; it’s actively structured, traded, and securitized. Investors routinely buy bundles of loans because they have detailed, standardized insights into repayment risks and probabilities.

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The GCC, despite its rapid economic progress, lacks this secondary market sophistication largely because it has never had trustworthy, real-time borrower data, especially for segments outside the traditional “prime” market. ClearGrid, by providing verified repayment metrics and predictive insights, becomes the critical infrastructure layer required to spark a genuine secondary debt market. This allows lenders to confidently recycle capital, selling portions of their loan portfolios to institutional investors who trust ClearGrid’s analytics.

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The result is a powerful flywheel effect: lenders free up capital faster, ClearGrid selectively invests and rehabilitates distressed assets with precision, and a vibrant secondary market for credit begins to form – transforming collections from a painful cost center into a strategic, value-generating operation.

Why ClearGrid is inevitable

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Big shifts in financial markets don’t happen overnight, but they do happen when the right pain points get solved at the right time. The lending boom in the GCC is undeniable, but without a smarter, data-driven approach to collections and debt recovery, it’s a cycle destined to hit friction. ClearGrid isn’t just fixing a broken process – it’s creating the infrastructure for a more efficient, scalable credit ecosystem. By turning collections into a strategic advantage rather than a cost center, it’s unlocking new possibilities for lenders, borrowers, and investors alike. The opportunity is large, the need is urgent, and with the momentum already in motion, we have no doubt that ClearGrid is on its way to reshaping the financial landscape in the region.

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