Offa Raises £6.5m Through a Listed Sukuk, but Names No Investors.

Offa, the Birmingham fintech majority-owned by Dubai’s Gulf Islamic Investments (GII), has raised £6.5 million through a sukuk and warrant structure listed on The International Stock Exchange (TISE) in Guernsey, the company said on 1 July 2026. It hasn’t named a single investor, or published the sukuk’s profit rate or term.

This Offa Islamic finance funding round is small by fintech standards, and the company sells it on the structure rather than the amount. The sharper question is who put the money in. Offa’s majority owner is GII, the Dubai firm that took control in 2022 and lent it a £100 million credit line in April 2024. Offa says the sukuk drew investors from the UK and the Gulf; whether those are new backers or GII money coming through a second door, it won’t say.

Offa describes itself as one of the UK’s biggest providers of Sharia-compliant property finance, covering bridge lending, buy-to-let and, since last year, regulated home purchase plans. The cash will go on technology, operations, customer experience and national expansion.

Sultan Choudhury OBE, Offa’s executive chairman, called the raise a vote of confidence. “To attract support from investors across the UK and the GCC through an innovative structure is a strong endorsement of our progress, our business and our ambition,” he said. He didn’t say who those investors were.

What a sukuk and warrant structure actually means

A sukuk is not a bond in the conventional sense, even though it gets described as one. Sharia law treats interest, or riba, as impermissible, so a sukuk represents a certificate of ownership in an underlying asset or income stream, with investors paid through profit share or lease income rather than a fixed coupon. Offa has not disclosed which assets or income streams back this sukuk.

TISE runs a dedicated segment for these instruments, called QIBM, which the exchange says is recognised by HMRC under the UK’s Alternative Finance Investment Bond framework, the mechanism that lets a sukuk qualify for broadly the same tax treatment as a conventional bond in the same jurisdiction.

The warrant is the more conventional half: it gives investors the right to buy Offa shares later at a set price, the same equity kicker a lender attaches to a venture debt round. Paired with a sukuk, it lets Sharia-compliant investors take on a risk and return profile close to a conventional structured deal, without the certificate itself carrying interest.

A raise that follows a year of regulatory change

The sukuk follows a year of change to Offa’s own licence. The Financial Conduct Authority authorised Offa to provide regulated home purchase plans on 18 March 2025, the Sharia-compliant equivalent of a residential mortgage and only the third such licence granted to a UK entity in more than seven years.

Offa launched its Home Purchase Plan range under that licence in February 2026, offering decisions within an hour, a claim from the company’s own materials. It followed with a bridge-to-let product in July 2025, aimed at landlords refinancing under one Sharia-compliant facility rather than two.

Why the structure matters as much as the amount

Utpal Shah, GII’s group chief financial officer and an Offa board member, welcomed the listed raise as a widening of the investor base. “We are delighted to welcome investors in this sukuk, who bring additional value to Offa’s journey,” he said, adding that the company was “demonstrating the strong execution and innovation that creates long-term value for all shareholders.”

Offa’s CFO, Amir Firdaus, previously led the team at Al Rayan Bank that issued the Tolkien Funding Sukuk No.1, at the time the largest sterling sukuk. That background is one reason the structure looks like a deliberate choice, not a label attached to a routine raise.

What Offa has not disclosed

Neither Offa nor TISE has published the sukuk’s tenor, profit rate or the identity of individual investors, and no listing document was publicly available at the time of writing.

Such a document, carrying those terms, would typically follow once TISE admits the instrument to its official list. When it does, it should answer the question the £6.5 million headline cannot: how much of Offa’s Gulf backing is new capital, and how much is GII by another name.