Lean Technologies is a rapidly growing fintech infrastructure company headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that provides a universal API platform bridging financial service providers and fintech companies across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Established in 2019 by Hisham Al-Falih, Aditya Sarkar, and Ashu Gupta, Lean Technologies empowers businesses to build and launch innovative digital financial products by enabling seamless and secure access to customer bank accounts for payments and data retrieval. With the ongoing digital transformation of banking and finance in MENA, Lean has become pivotal in facilitating open banking, account-to-account payments, and real-time financial data access. In this article, we explore ten key facts about Lean Technologies that reveal its origins, technology, impact, funding, and future prospects.
Lean Technologies was founded in 2019 by Hisham Al-Falih, Aditya Sarkar, and Ashu Gupta, driven by the vision to unlock financial data access and payments tools to fuel the next generation of fintech innovation in the MENA region. The founders recognized the challenges faced by consumers and businesses due to fragmented banking infrastructure and limited product choices. Lean’s goal is to provide a simple, developer-friendly API platform that abstracts the complexities of banking systems and enables rapid fintech development. Their mission reflects a commitment to financial inclusion and accelerating innovation throughout the Middle East.
At the core of Lean Technologies’ offering is a universal Application Programming Interface (API) that enables fintech companies and financial institutions to retrieve real-time financial data and initiate secure account-to-account payments. This API supports access to more than 98% of banks in the UAE and all 11 banks in Saudi Arabia, offering coverage for key consumer banking features like balances, transaction history, payments, and reconciliations. Lean’s platform simplifies the integration process for developers by providing a single standardized connection across diverse banks, making it easier for companies to build new financial products such as lending, payments, wallets, and treasury solutions.
Lean Technologies operates within the regulatory frameworks in the MENA region, having secured licenses and approvals from financial authorities such as the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM). The company is an active participant in regulatory sandbox environments, which allow them to test innovative financial services in controlled settings. This regulatory compliance ensures Lean's solutions meet stringent security and privacy standards, promoting trust among business clients and bank partners.
Lean Technologies has rapidly attracted significant venture capital funding, reflecting confidence in its growth potential. The company raised over $100 million in total financing, including a $67.5 million Series B round led by US-based General Catalyst in 2024, one of the largest fintech funding rounds in Saudi Arabia. Earlier investors included Sequoia Capital India, Bain Capital Ventures, and strategic family offices. This funding supports product development, regional expansion, and scaling of operational capabilities.
Since its founding, Lean Technologies has established a robust client base of over 250 businesses in the MENA region, spanning fintech startups, banks, and large enterprises. Clients include well-known entities such as Careem, DAMAC, e&, Tamara, Tabby, and Wataniya Insurance. The platform has processed more than $2 billion in payment volume and manages over a million connected accounts, evidencing Lean’s key role as the region’s leading fintech infrastructure provider, enabling real-time payments and financial data aggregation.
Lean actively pursues collaborations with fintech firms, financial institutions, and technology providers to expand its ecosystem and product offerings. Strategic partnerships facilitate new financial services and enhance the user experience for end customers. For example, Lean signed multiple Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with Saudi fintech players such as Tabby and Tamara to integrate open banking capabilities into lending and payment products. These collaborations position Lean as a critical enabler of the MENA fintech ecosystem.
Lean Technologies emphasizes ease of integration and a superior developer experience. Its platform offers comprehensive SDKs, Data APIs, and a clean, user-friendly dashboard for payment reconciliation and data visualization. Lean supports multiple programming languages and provides extensive documentation to streamline fintech product development. This technical focus helps companies accelerate their go-to-market timelines and innovate quickly with fewer infrastructure hurdles.
With offices across Riyadh, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, and London, Lean Technologies targets wide regional coverage. Besides Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the company plans further expansion within MENA to capture rising demand for digital financial services. Lean has already positioned itself as the dominant player in fintech infrastructure in the region by offering broad bank coverage, local regulatory compliance, and trusted operational processes. Its leadership team is focused on cementing this status while exploring adjacent markets and products.
Lean’s platform contributes to financial inclusion by enabling streamlined access to banking services and financial data for a broader range of consumers and businesses. By simplifying banking data access and payments initiation, Lean empowers fintech startups to create innovative products—such as buy-now-pay-later, digital wallets, and credit scoring services—that reach underserved populations. The company promotes open banking principles, aiming to foster a connected and inclusive financial ecosystem in MENA.
Looking ahead, Lean Technologies is focused on expanding its product suite beyond data aggregation and payments. Upcoming offerings include invoicing, account top-ups, e-commerce payment solutions, and enhanced treasury management tools. Lean aims to deepen integrations with banks and fintechs, leverage AI-driven analytics, and broaden access across underserved parts of the region’s banking market. Continuous innovation and strong investor backing suggest Lean is poised to remain a fintech infrastructure backbone for the Middle East and North Africa.
Lean Technologies exemplifies the transformative potential of fintech infrastructure in unlocking the next wave of digital financial innovation in the MENA region. From securing extensive funding and regulatory approvals to serving a broad client base and simplifying complex banking systems with a universal API, Lean has established itself as a leader shaping the future of finance in the Gulf and beyond. Its developer-centric platform underpins a thriving ecosystem of innovative financial products that promote inclusion, convenience, and efficiency. As digital banking continues to evolve, Lean Technologies’ growth trajectory and expanding capabilities position it as a pivotal player, inviting us to watch closely how it will redefine financial connectivity in the Middle East.