Tabby's $233M Series F Values Fintech at $6.5B

A Growth Round That Reads Like a Profitability Round

Tabby closed a $233 million Series F on September 14 at a $6.5 billion valuation, and the number that matters is not the one in the headline. It is the previous one: $4.5 billion in October 2025. A 44% step up in under a year, raised entirely from existing backers, in a funding environment that has not been generous to consumer lenders.

• Raise: $233 million Series F at a $6.5 billion valuation, up from $4.5 billion in October 2025
• Investors: led by Blue Pool Capital, the Hong Kong firm backed by Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, with HSG, Wellington Management and Arbor Ventures participating
• Scale: more than $18 billion in annualised transaction volume, about 25 million registered users and roughly 70,000 merchants including Amazon and Shein
• Status: the company says it has been profitable since 2023; closing remains subject to regulatory clearance including from the Saudi Central Bank

Why Is an Insider Round a Good Sign Here?

Normally it is not. A round led entirely by existing shareholders often means no new investor would set the price. What makes this one read differently is the combination of a substantial markup and a reported profitability track record going back to 2023. Existing holders marking their own position up 44% while writing a fresh cheque is a different signal than an insider round done flat to keep the lights on.

CEO Hosam Arab described the company as profitable and well capitalised, and said there are no immediate plans for a public listing. That last part is the more interesting disclosure. Plenty of fintechs at this scale would be building an IPO narrative. Choosing to stay private with $18 billion in annualised volume suggests the capital need is genuinely modest, which is consistent with the profitability claim rather than in tension with it.

The structure supports that reading too. The round mixes newly issued stock with secondary shares and includes a liquidity window for staff — the classic shape of a company that wants to let early employees take something off the table without forcing a listing to do it.

What Is Tabby Actually Becoming?

It started in 2019 in the UAE as a checkout instalment product and moved its headquarters to Riyadh in 2023. Calling it a buy-now-pay-later company is now roughly a generation out of date. Over the past year it has picked up Saudi licences to offer larger and longer-term consumer financing and working capital to businesses, and a UAE licence for a cash product positioned as an alternative to a traditional debit account.

That is a deliberate walk from a single transaction-level product toward a broader consumer finance platform — and the transaction volume is what makes it possible. Twenty-five million registered users and 70,000 merchants constitute a distribution channel and, more valuably, a repayment history dataset that a new entrant cannot buy. Underwriting quality is the whole game in consumer credit, and the firm that already has the data starts several years ahead.

What Does This Say About the Region?

Gulf fintech has been building quietly while attention sat elsewhere, and a $6.5 billion privately held payments company with real volume is a reasonable marker of where it has got to. It also fits a broader pattern of capital moving toward companies with measurable operating metrics rather than pure growth stories — the same shift visible in infrastructure rounds like Kaiko's Series B for crypto market data and Euclyd's Series A with Samsung backing.

One caveat for anyone tracking this as a comparable: the deal is not closed. Regulatory clearance including the Saudi Central Bank is still pending, so the valuation is agreed rather than final. More funding rounds, market infrastructure and fintech coverage in our stock trading section.

Sources: Reuters, via Business Recorder — September 14, 2026; FinTech Global — September 14, 2026; Crowdfund Insider — September 2026.