Bahrain-Based Fintech Flooss Raises US$22 Million Credit Facility From The UAE's Shorooq

Bahrain-based Sharia-compliant fintech platform Flooss has bagged a US$22 million credit facility arranged by UAE-based investment firm Shorooq. 

Founded by Fawaz Ghazal and Tariq Al Saffar in Bahrain in 2022, Flooss operates as a mobile-first consumer finance platform offering instant cash financing of up to 2,500 Bahraini dinars ($6,630), with funds disbursed directly into customers’ bank accounts. Alongside cash financing, the platform provides Sharia-compliant buy now, pay later (BNPL) services and operates the device-financing marketplace called Souq as well.

The newly structured facility will be deployed to expand Flooss’s Sharia-compliant lending products for digitally active consumers, with a particular focus on scaling its core cash financing offering. Flooss' credit decisions are powered by a proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning-based engine that draws on open banking and handset data to assess customers typically underserved by traditional banks. 

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Ghazal, co-founder and CEO, Flooss, said that the company’s direction was shaped early on by a clear market gap. “Flooss was founded following a shared recognition that access to Sharia-compliant consumer financing remained slow, fragmented, and often inaccessible for a large segment of emerging-credit customers," he said. "The company was built to address this gap by offering instant, inclusive, and fully digital financing designed around how consumers actually live and transact today.” 

That vision has been further refined by changes in how consumers in Bahrain interact with financial services. “Over the past two years, we’ve seen a clear shift in consumer behavior in Bahrain toward digital-first financial services," Ghazal shared. "Consumers increasingly expect instant, app-based, Sharia-compliant financing with full transparency on pricing and terms, rather than branch visits or paper-heavy processes. This shift—supported by wider adoption of open banking and improved access to verified income and obligations data—has directly shaped our operating model. At Flooss, we’ve strengthened our credit assessment using real-time financial data, while delivering faster decisions, more tailored ticket sizes, and flexible products such as BNPL and device financing that better reflect how consumers want to borrow and spend today.” 

Those operational choices are reflected in the platform’s traction. Flooss, which is licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain and the Saudi Central Bank, with its products certified as Sharia-compliant by Dar Al Marahaa Al Shar'ia, currently ranks first in Bahrain’s finance application category and has surpassed 500,000 downloads, underscoring how institutional capital, data-driven underwriting, and Sharia-compliant structures are converging across the region’s consumer finance landscape. 

Despite its use of alternative data for underwriting, Flooss’s leadership is clear that technology alone is not a substitute for disciplined underwriting. “Many new entrants misunderstand alternative data as a shortcut to higher approval rates, rather than a tool that must be applied with the same discipline as traditional credit data," Ghazal pointed out. "While non-financial signals can meaningfully improve decision-making, they only add value when rigorously tested and continuously validated." 

Ghazal added that, within Flooss’s own framework, those signals are applied conservatively. “At Flooss, alternative data is used to strengthen underwriting discipline, not to bypass it," he said. "We apply it through extensive back-testing, A/B testing, and conservative cut-offs to ensure that any data incorporated genuinely improves predictive accuracy rather than introducing noise. The long-term winners in digital lending will be those that build proprietary credit models capable of dynamically combining financial and non-financial signals with macroeconomic context, allowing underwriting frameworks to adapt responsibly as customer behavior and market conditions evolve.” 

That underwriting discipline was also central to Shorooq’s decision to structure the facility. Joseph Barron, Principal at Shorooq, said the firm’s conviction was driven by evidence that Flooss had reached institutional scale. “The primary signal was the proven resilience of the Flooss AI-led credit engine," Barron said. "Having processed over US$100 million in financing with consistently tight credit controls, Flooss demonstrated that its underwriting is both fast and disciplined. It signals that the technology has moved from a startup experiment to an institutional-grade engine capable of deploying large-scale capital with predictable outcomes.” 

Meanwhile, as capital structures across the Gulf continue to evolve, Barron noted that investor interest has increasingly concentrated on consumer finance models with clearer paths to profitability, reshaping how fintechs approach growth and funding. “Investor appetite has gravitated toward unit-economic-positive verticals like consumer finance because the infrastructure in the GCC is becoming increasingly established," he said. "The robustness of regional credit bureaus—such as Benefit in Bahrain, the Saudi Credit Bureau in Saudi Arabia, and Al Etihad Credit Bureau in the UAE—has fundamentally de-risked the sector. These bureaus now provide deep, multi-dimensional data that, when combined with the proprietary risk models at companies like Flooss, allows for precision underwriting that was impossible five years ago.” 

Barron added that the structure of the transaction also reflects a broader shift in how fintech growth is being financed across nations in the GCC. "Historically, fintechs used expensive, dilutive equity to fund loan books," Barron pointed out. "The emergence of structured private credit signals a maturing ecosystem where debt is the primary fuel for scaling. This allows Flooss to preserve equity for research and development and geographic expansion, while using credit facilities to scale the lending product, effectively moving the region toward a sustainable, asset-backed growth model seen in global financial hubs. As the sector matures, funding strategies will move away from equity-only rounds toward hybrid structures that integrate warehouse facilities and securitization. Investors are no longer just looking for user growth; they are looking for platforms like Flooss that can demonstrate high-fidelity data integration and a low cost of capital.” 

Looking ahead, Barron believes structural and macro trends will continue to influence credit performance and product design. “The two biggest drivers will be open banking maturity and predictive risk modeling," he declared. "As open banking frameworks reach full adoption across the GCC by 2026, credit will transform from an application into a real-time embedded feature. As the region navigates global rate cycles, the competitive edge will belong to firms like Flooss that use alternative data, like real-time cash flow and handset behavior, to manage credit performance before it shows up in traditional lagging indicators.” 

From an operator’s perspective, Ghazal sees those same structural shifts shaping a distinct path for Islamic digital finance. “While convenience and speed will increasingly converge with conventional platforms, Sharia-compliant providers will continue to differentiate themselves through asset-backing, transparent pricing, and strong governance," Ghazal said. "These fundamentals position digital Islamic finance for sustained regional growth, with increasing relevance beyond MENA over time." 

Pictured in the lead image is Flooss' co-founder and CEO Fawaz Ghazal. Image courtesy Flooss.