UAE – Mubasher: Maalexi, a cross-border agri-trade end-to-end transaction platform, has secured a shariah-compliant credit facility of up to $20 million from Amwal Capital Partners (ACP), an independent firm specializing in alternative investments across the MENA region.
The funding will start with an initial $5 million tranche of capital that will enable Maalexi to scale its operations and boost food security across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, according to a press release.
Maalexi will also use the facility to serve thousands of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) waiting to partner with the platform and build a solid foundation for future growth.
The platform enables verified SMEs to participate directly in cross-border food and agri-trade by lowering risk, improving capital, and enhancing transaction security.
It leverages proprietary technologies to manage credit, inventory, compliance, and logistics with unmatched intelligence.
The facility, a fully tech-enabled securitization structure, aims to track daily risk positions in real time and execute swift, small-ticket transactions through Maalexi’s patented blockchain-secured automation.
It is collateralized against Maalexi’s inventory and receivables across UAE warehouses.
Future expansion is expected into origin-market procurement via partnerships with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and cooperatives.
Azam Pasha, CEO of Maalexi, said: “Partnering with Amwal Capital empowers us to scale our reach to tens of thousands of SMEs across the region while accelerating the deployment of our core technology stack — AI for risk intelligence and decision-making, IoT for real-time trackability and traceability, and blockchain for secured documents and immutable transaction records.”
“Combined with the capital support of partners like Amwal Capital, these innovations are redefining how food is digitally procured, stored, and distributed—reinforcing food security across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the wider GCC,” Pasha added.
With the UAE importing nearly $24 billion of food annually, 80% of which is re-exported to meet regional food security needs, SMEs remain an underutilized and underrecognized part of this food supply chain.
Therefore, Maalexi is addressing this gap by enabling SMEs to become a key part of the backbone of food security in the region.
Moreover, the investment will allow Maalexi to allocate more of its equity capital for developing its advanced technology stack, including embedded technologies and proprietary datasets. This is in addition to an upcoming tokenization layer that will enable real-time transactions and payments, executed within seconds.
Earlier this year, in January, the UAE-based agriculture-focused fintech secured $3 million in pre-Series A funding.
