Saudi Arabian proptech company Rize has secured a SAR187.5 million ($50 million) asset-backed Murabaha facility from Jadwa Investment to finance its growing portfolio of residential rental contracts, giving the company additional capacity to expand its monthly rent-payment model across the country.
Founded in 2021 by Ibrahim Balilah and Mohammed Alfraihi, Rize enables eligible tenants to spread annual rental obligations across 12 monthly payments while landlords receive their agreed rent upfront.
Unlike a conventional equity fundraising round, the new facility is specifically tied to Rize’s rental-contract portfolio, allowing the company to separate the capital required to finance its core rental operations from the shareholder capital it uses for corporate growth.
“What makes it particularly significant is that it directly finances our rental portfolio,” said Balilah, Rize’s co-founder and CEO, adding that the arrangement allows shareholder capital to remain focused on “product development, talent, and expansion.”
What is Rize and what it does
Rize is a Saudi proptech company focused on changing how residential rent is paid and managed.
Rather than requiring eligible tenants to settle an entire year’s rent upfront or in a small number of instalments, the platform allows them to convert the annual obligation into 12 monthly payments.
At the same time, landlords receive the agreed rental amount upfront, creating a structure designed to address the different cash-flow needs of both sides of the rental transaction.
Founded by Ibrahim Balilah and Mohammed Alfraihi in 2021, Rize operates across Saudi Arabia and says more than 200,000 tenants have used its flexible rental solutions. Its network also includes more than 3,000 landlords and 1,200 verified real estate brokers.
The company is licensed by Saudi Arabia’s Real Estate General Authority for electronic real estate brokerage and marketing and property management.
How this works and why it matters
At the centre of Rize’s model is a financing arrangement that separates when landlords receive their money from when tenants make their payments.
Under the company’s structure, Rize pays the landlord in one or two payments through Saudi Arabia’s Ejar platform under a master lease contract. Rize then subleases the property to the tenant, who pays the rent to Rize monthly through Ejar.
The company explicitly states that this arrangement does not constitute cash financing to the tenant.
The model therefore allows tenants to manage rent as a recurring monthly expense while landlords retain the benefit of receiving their agreed rent upfront.
However, the structure requires Rize to have substantial capital available to finance rental contracts before it collects the corresponding monthly payments from tenants. This is where the new financing facility becomes particularly important.
Why the $50m Murabaha facility is significant
The SAR187.5 million facility from Jadwa Investment is designed specifically to provide Rize with additional financing capacity for its rental-contract portfolio.
In simple terms, Rize can use the facility to support the upfront rental payments associated with its business model instead of relying entirely on money provided by its shareholders.
This creates a distinction between the capital needed to operate the rental portfolio and the equity capital needed to develop the company.
Rize said the facility will allow shareholder capital to remain focused on product development, technology, talent, partnerships and further expansion across Saudi Arabia.
“The capital invested by our shareholders [can] remain focused on product development, talent, and expansion,” Balilah said.
The distinction is important because rapidly expanding a rent-payment platform can require significant working capital even as the company simultaneously needs money to improve its technology and expand its operations.
Rize’s growth, investors and market opportunity
The new facility comes after Rize raised $35 million in a Series A round in January 2025 through a combination of equity and debt.
The company is backed by investors including SEEDRA Ventures, Raed Ventures, HALA Ventures, JOA Capital, Aqar Platform, Bunat Ventures, NAMA Ventures, Watheeq Financial and Razam Investment.
Its reported user and partner base indicates an expanding presence within Saudi Arabia’s residential rental ecosystem, with more than 200,000 tenants, 3,000 landlords and 1,200 verified brokers connected to its network.
Rize estimates that Saudi Arabia’s residential rental market is worth approximately SAR150 billion annually, giving the company a substantial market in which to expand its flexible payment model.
The additional financing capacity could therefore allow Rize to support more rental contracts as demand grows for alternatives to traditional annual rent-payment arrangements.
What the financing means for Rize’s next phase
For Rize, the Jadwa facility represents more than an injection of additional capital: it provides financing specifically matched to the underlying economics of its business model.
Because the facility is dedicated to rental contracts, the company can potentially increase the volume of contracts it supports without drawing as heavily on shareholder equity for those transactions.
Its equity capital can instead be directed towards longer-term corporate priorities, including technology, product development, talent acquisition, partnerships and geographical expansion.
Rize’s strategy also reflects a broader evolution in the Saudi real estate sector, where digital platforms are being used to modernise property transactions, rental management and payment structures.
With its contracts executed electronically through Ejar and its operations licensed by the Real Estate General Authority, Rize is positioning its technology-enabled rental model within the country’s formal digital real estate infrastructure as it seeks to expand its portfolio and serve more tenants and landlords.
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