Saudi Arabia-based proptech company Rize has secured a SAR187.5 million ($50 million) asset-backed Murabaha facility from Jadwa Investment, giving the company additional financing capacity to expand its portfolio of residential rental contracts.
Unlike an equity funding round, the facility is specifically structured to finance the underlying rental contracts that power Rize’s business. This allows the company to separate the capital required to finance its rental portfolio from the equity capital it uses for technology, product development, talent and expansion.
Founded in 2021 by Ibrahim Balilah and Mohammed Alfraihi, Rize operates a Rent Now, Pay Later model designed to give eligible tenants greater flexibility in managing annual rental obligations.
Turning Annual Rent Into Monthly Payments
Rize’s model addresses a familiar challenge in Saudi Arabia’s residential rental market: tenants may be required to commit to annual rent payments even though their income arrives monthly.
Through Rize, eligible tenants can split their annual rent into 12 monthly payments, while landlords receive their agreed rent upfront. The rental contracts are documented electronically through Saudi Arabia’s Ejar platform.
Under the structure, Rize pays the landlord in one or two payments through Ejar under a master lease contract, then subleases the property to the tenant, who makes monthly payments through Ejar.
The company explicitly states that its structure does not constitute cash financing to the tenant. Instead, Rize is effectively providing an alternative rental-payment structure around the underlying property contract.
$50M Dedicated to the Rental Portfolio
The Jadwa Investment facility is significant because it is tied directly to Rize’s rental-contract portfolio rather than its corporate balance sheet.
As Rize grows, its Rent Now, Pay Later model requires capital to fund the gap between paying landlords upfront and collecting rent from tenants over the course of the year. The new facility provides additional capacity for that portfolio without requiring the company to rely entirely on shareholder capital.
“What makes it particularly significant is that it directly finances our rental portfolio, allowing the capital invested by our shareholders to remain focused on product development, talent, and expansion,” said Ibrahim Balilah, co-founder and CEO of Rize.
That distinction gives Rize greater flexibility in how it deploys its equity capital. While the Murabaha facility supports the underlying rental contracts, shareholder capital can continue to fund the technology and infrastructure required to expand the business.
Building Scale Across Saudi Arabia
Rize says more than 200,000 tenants have used its flexible rental solutions to date. Its network also includes more than 3,000 landlords and 1,200 verified real estate brokers, giving the company distribution across Saudi Arabia’s residential rental ecosystem.
The company offers its monthly rent model nationwide and is licensed by Saudi Arabia’s Real Estate General Authority (REGA) for electronic real estate brokerage and marketing and property management.
The use of Ejar also places the rental relationship within Saudi Arabia’s electronic rental infrastructure, allowing contracts to be executed digitally.
For Rize, this combination of regulatory infrastructure, property partnerships and financing capacity is central to scaling the model.
A Different Way to Finance Proptech Growth
Rize’s latest transaction also illustrates how financing structures can evolve alongside fintech and proptech business models.
The company previously raised a $35 million Series A in January 2025, comprising a mix of equity and debt. Its investors include SEEDRA Ventures, Raed Ventures, HALA Ventures, JOA Capital, Aqar Platform, Bunat Ventures, NAMA Ventures, Watheeq Financial and Razam Investment.
The new facility adds another layer of capital specifically designed around the assets generated by Rize’s core business.
Rather than using equity to fund every new rental contract, Rize can use asset-backed financing for the portfolio while preserving equity for areas that can increase the company’s long-term capabilities and reach.
Targeting a SAR150B Rental Market
Rize estimates Saudi Arabia’s residential rental market at approximately SAR150 billion annually, creating a substantial addressable market for alternative rental-payment structures.
The company plans to use the additional financing capacity to expand its rental portfolio as demand for monthly payment options grows across the Kingdom.
The broader opportunity is tied to a shift in how consumers interact with housing costs. For tenants, monthly payments can align rent more closely with monthly income. For landlords, receiving the agreed rent upfront preserves the traditional economics of the rental relationship.
Rize is therefore attempting to sit between the two sides of the transaction, using technology and structured financing to change when and how rent is paid without fundamentally changing the underlying rental contract.
With $50 million in dedicated financing now available for that portfolio, the company enters its next phase with a larger pool of capital specifically designed to support the engine at the centre of its business.
The challenge ahead will be scaling that model responsibly across Saudi Arabia while continuing to build the technology, property network and financial infrastructure needed to support a much larger rental portfolio.
