We are excited to announce baraka’s Series A funding, which was led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures.
At baraka our focus has always been on enabling and driving financial inclusion in the GCC by breaking down traditional barriers associated with accessing the US stock market. With thousands of users from all over the region turning to baraka to transform their investing experience, we're pleased to announce our next round of funding that will allow us to continue building an interactive platform and expand our services to reach future investors.
So what’s next for baraka? What does this fund raise mean for you? We’ve got a lot planned, so let’s talk.
Breaking Boundaries
When we started baraka back in 2020, the investing landscape was very different to the one we know now. People around the world and in the Middle East felt the impact of unexpected events like COVID-19 and recognized the importance of financial stability. It became clear that access to financial markets was needed more than ever to build wealth and gain greater financial freedom. So, we stepped into the market to break down barriers and pave the way for a new generation of investors.
Building on a Strong Foundation
As a homegrown GCC brand, we feel a great sense of pride about being a part of one of the world’s most innovative and fastest growing regional economies. The region has taken steps to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem that fosters innovation by investing significant resources in economic and social development, transforming the economy into a modern, open, and competitive landscape.
While we continue to grow our business, we will be working hard to accelerate operations in neighboring GCC countries, supporting our core mission of democratizing investing by supporting economic diversification plans in surrounding countries.
We've made great strides since our Seed Round funding in August 2021. We’ve launched 25+ features to make investing simpler and more accessible while continuing to build a strong team that has joined us from all over the world. Every single day, tens of thousands of consumers in the Middle East use our investment app and daily financial content to learn about or carry out investments. That means that every day, tens of thousands of people in the region are taking a positive step towards financial freedom, and that's something we’re really proud of.
In the words of our CEO: “In just one year since our launch, we reach hundreds of thousands of daily users or consumers of our content across the GCC. By empowering the next generation of investors in our region with low-cost and comprehensive investment choices, we remain committed to enabling financial inclusion for millions of investors across our region.”
– “Feras Jalbout”, Founder and CEO of baraka
Looking Forward
The latest capital raise was led by Peter Thiel-backed Valar Ventures, a US venture capital fund that invests exclusively in fast-growing fintech businesses, including multi-billion dollar companies such as Wise, Stash, and N26. The round was capped off with participation from Knollwood, also known for backing Dubai-based Kitopi. At baraka, we are thrilled by the prospect of having these two financial giants “join us in transforming how users here save, invest, and grow their money for the future,” according to our CEO.
Raising capital isn't the achievement, and money isn't an end in and of itself – it's what you do with it that counts. While we’re proud of how far we’ve come, we know there is still work to do. At baraka, we aim to understand the average investor and their investor problems, and we know that we still have many areas where we can improve further.
So what’s next? With this new investment, baraka will double down on its presence across the GCC and the broader region, with the aim of making investing more accessible to a wider range of people. Over the next year, we have a bold and diverse product roadmap to execute as we reimagine investing in the region.
You can expect more ways to invest, more assets to invest in, and more educational content to grow your financial knowledge—all in one app. Here’s a glimpse of what to expect from baraka in the coming few months:
- Access to regional stocks. We’re committed to catering to different types of investors in the GCC and a big part of that is working with regional regulators and local exchanges to enable access to local market investing on our app.
- New Features. Putting our investors in the driver's seat and enabling them with the products and tools they need to make informed, long term investment decisions has always been our priority. Our new features like enabling access to Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRIPs) and extended trading hours will provide our users more access, and more flexibility.
As you grow, so do we. We’re working hard to continue delivering on our promise of making investing more accessible to support the evolving investment needs of our user base. We set out to modernize the investment experience in the region, but we’ve always set our sights on expanding our regulatory scope of business in the future to build a long term asset management business for one of the world's youngest and most underserved populations. We launched with a modern investment experience, but we’re just getting started.
Thank you to our early adopters that trust us with their hard earned investment dollars, and thank you to our broader community of stakeholders for helping shape our product offering.
baraka is regulated by the DFSA
