Just months after Sukna Capital commenced operations in December 2024, its first fund had already made its inaugural investment in UAE-based fintech platform Octa – with a US$20 million credit facility from the Sukna Fund for Direct Financing (SFDF).
Founding CEO Fares Bardeesi said: “Sukna Capital is a continuation of Sukna Ventures,” a Riyadh-based early-stage VC fund operator focused on investing in the MENA region, with emphasis on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain.
The next phase for Sukna Capital with this SFDF fund is to launch its Saudi investment platform that provides investors curated access to alternative asset classes including opportunities in VC deals, direct financing, real estate and PE – with the Saudi Capital Market Authority approval granted in July 2025.
SFDF is Saudi Arabia’s first open-ended, Shariah compliant direct lending fund – pitched as a regulatory milestone for non-bank financing in the MENA region, by expanding institutional credit access for underserved sectors across the region.
“As a CMA-licensed alternative asset investment platform, Sukna is now authorized to offer institutional investors access to a vehicle that provides non-dilutive, scalable financing for SMEs seeking accelerated growth without equity dilution.”
For investors, unlike traditional private credit vehicles, the open-ended fund structure enables investors to enter and exit at regular intervals, offering periodic liquidity with no long lock-up periods.
In practice, this means investment opportunities would be based on structuring credit around real‑time revenues instead of collateral, where financing tenors could be from six to 24 months – drawing many parallels from Shariah business crowdfunding models.
As a co-founder of Sukna Ventures and the architect behind Sukna’s evolution into structured private debt, Fares emphasized the urgent need to close funding gaps for both traditional and innovation-led SMEs.
“As of Q3 2024, SME lending in Saudi Arabia is estimated to be at SAR329.23 billion (US$87.79 billion) – just 9.1% of total bank credit – well below the Vision 2030 target of 15-20%. SFDF is designed to address that gap through institutional, regulator-aligned capital solutions tailored to the needs of high-potential businesses across sectors.”
Prior to the SFDF’s establishment with a Shariah focus, parent firm Sukna Ventures has built portfolios valued at over US$6.5 billion for various start-ups involved in fintech, gaming, education and health plus conventional sectors that include defense assets.
