Lean Technologies
“Can a single, regulated open banking + payments API platform become the default financial infrastructure layer across MENA's fragmented banking markets?”
Founded2019
HQRiyadh, Saudi Arabia
Total raised$100M+
Latest roundSeries B, 2024
IndustryInfrastructure / Open banking
The story
Lean was founded in 2019 to be the 'Plaid for MENA' — building open banking data aggregation across Saudi Arabia and the UAE at a time when neither market had operational open banking frameworks. After the SAMA and CBUAE regulatory frameworks matured, Lean expanded from pure data aggregation into account-to-account payments (Pay by Bank) and payouts, becoming a dual-rail payments + data infrastructure provider. The Series B in 2024 funded the push to monetize payments rails alongside AISP data products.
Product timeline
2019
Founded in Riyadh to build open banking infrastructure for MENA· pivot
2022
Raised $33M Series A led by Sequoia Capital India· banking
2024
Raised $67.5M Series B led by General Catalyst· banking
2025
Received In-Principle Approval from CBUAE for Open Finance Services; SAMA Major Payment Institution licence· banking
2025
Pay by Bank launched live in UAE· banking
Regulated entities
3
regulatory licences held by Lean Technologies
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
3 layers disclosed in Lean Technologies’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Lean Pay by Bank (self-operated)Lean Payouts (self-operated)Lean Deposits / Collections / Checkout (self-operated)
Open banking
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
2 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.