Saudi fintech startup Rased (also styled “Rasēd”), which specialises in AI-powered fraud detection and prevention for banks and fintechs, has closed a pre-seed funding round led by Wa’ed Ventures and SHARE Investment Co., with participation from other undisclosed investors.
Founded in 2022 by Dr Talal Al-Badrani and Mostafa Al-Salhi, Rased has developed a platform that combines behavioural analytics, device intelligence and real-time decisioning to detect digital financial fraud in milliseconds. The startup says its technology has already prevented more than US$100 million in fraud across its client base.
The funding will be used to accelerate product development, expand engineering and data science teams, and scale go-to-market operations across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Rased is positioning its offering to meet the needs of regulated institutions in Saudi Arabia whose legacy rule-based fraud systems struggle to keep pace with sophisticated threats.
Rased’s engine, designed to operate at sub-millisecond response times, offers integration via APIs or SDKs for fraud monitoring in transactions, account opening, device binding and session-analysis contexts. Its approach emphasises low false positives and audit-ready logs, vital for compliance with the Saudi Central Bank frameworks.
The deal reflects growing investor interest in the MENA region’s fintech and financial-crime-prevention segment, as digital transactions and fraud risk surge in tandem with regional digital-economy acceleration.
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