Stitch Raises US$25 Million Series A Led by a16z to Expand Unified Core Banking Stack
Financial infrastructure provider Stitch has secured US$25 million in Series A funding in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), marking the venture capital firm’s first investment in the GCC. The funding brings Stitch’s total capital raised to US$35 million.
The core banking company said the new capital will support the expansion of its cloud-native platform across the Middle East, while also accelerating product development and global go-to-market activities.
Stitch offers a unified technology stack covering lending, cards, payments, and ledgers. Its platform is designed to help financial institutions modernize core infrastructure incrementally, allowing them to replace or upgrade modules without having to overhaul legacy systems all at once.
The company positions its infrastructure as a foundation for artificial intelligence adoption in banking and financial services. According to Stitch founder and CEO Mohamed Oueida, many institutions are still operating on fragmented legacy systems that no longer meet the demands of modern finance.
“Financial institutions globally run on fragmented, legacy infrastructure that should have been left behind 20 years ago,” Oueida said. “Now every institution wants to adopt AI, but AI on top of broken infrastructure is a dead end.”
Stitch said the round also included participation from existing backers Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC.
The funding follows a period of strong business momentum for the startup. Stitch reported that it processed more than US$5 billion in transactions over the past six months and recorded a tenfold increase in customer numbers in 2025.
The company currently operates across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Its client list includes Raya Financing, LuLu Exchange, Noqodi, and Foodics.
From the investor side, a16z said the company’s approach to modernizing financial infrastructure is central to enabling broader innovation. Andreessen Horowitz general partner Alex Rampell said legacy infrastructure has become a major barrier to AI adoption across financial institutions.
“Financial institutions are sitting on decades of infrastructure debt, and that debt is now the single biggest obstacle to AI adoption,” Rampell said. “What Stitch is building, a modern, unified system of record, is what makes everything else possible.”
Industry Analysis
Stitch’s latest funding round reflects growing investor interest in infrastructure providers that help banks and financial institutions replace legacy systems without large-scale disruption. The emphasis on modular modernization is particularly relevant in markets where financial institutions are looking to improve operational efficiency while preparing for AI-driven services.
The participation of a16z in its first GCC deal may also signal rising global confidence in the region’s fintech infrastructure market. As financial institutions continue to prioritize digitization, platforms that combine payments, lending, and ledger capabilities into a single stack are likely to remain attractive to both customers and investors.
