When Parthi Duraisamy was a consultant at McKinsey’s Dubai office, he discovered that the American Express cards his company relied on for corporate expenses were rarely accepted in the Middle East. This forced Duraisamy to cover significant travel expenses out of pocket and file endless expense reports.
“It was a constant pain,” Duraisamy explained on the call. “I’d spend my weekends uploading receipts, reconciling every expense manually.”
Now, Alaan, the company he launched with fellow McKinsey alumnus Karun Kurien, is the Middle East’s leading spend management platform. It just announced that it raised $48 million in Series A funding led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) with participation from others like founders of 885 Capital, Y Combinator, 468 Capital, and Pioneer Fund.
Founders of some of Alaan’s unicorn customers, like Hosam Arab (Tabby), Mudassir Sheikha (Careem), and Khalid Al Ameri, a well-known YouTuber in the region, also invested.
This is one of the largest Series A rounds for a fintech in the region, compared to Saudi Arabia’s buy now, pay later platform Tamara, which raised $110 million a couple of years ago.
“The category has demonstrated strong product-market fit in the MENA region, and Alaan stands out as the category leader,” said GV Ravishankar, Managing Director at Peak XV. “Their customer-centric and product-led mindset has enabled them to build solutions tailored to modern finance teams.” (Peak XV also participated in a large Series B round last month, backing UAE’s proptech Huspy.)
Alaan’s path to category leadership wasn’t without challenges, however.
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While the fintech raised a $2.5 million seed round in mid-2021, it couldn’t launch for nearly a year, largely due to regulatory complexities and the need for banking partnerships in the UAE. Its recent expansion into Saudi Arabia posed similar hurdles, taking years to secure approvals from the country’s apex bank before finally launching this January.
“The biggest challenge we faced, both in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, was simply going live,” the CEO shared.
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