Foodics, the Riyadh-based restaurant operations and financial technology platform, launched Capital 2.0 at Money20/20 Middle East on 14 September 2026, an automated financing product that uses a restaurant’s own performance data to pre-qualify it for funding rather than requiring a traditional loan application. The company is targeting SAR 375 million, roughly $100 million, in financing disbursed through the product in its first year.
How the underwriting actually works
Capital 2.0 runs an AI layer over the operational and financial data restaurants already generate on the Foodics platform, using it to assess eligibility and automatically identify which operators qualify for funding without a separate application process. Eligible restaurants select their financing terms and complete the process digitally through the Foodics app, with approval and disbursement completed within four hours.
The product covers working capital and invoice factoring for suppliers, with individual amounts ranging from approximately SAR 20,000 for working capital up to SAR 2 million or more for expansion financing. Repayments are collected through small deductions from each daily settlement rather than a single larger monthly payment.
Ahmad AlZaini, co-founder and chief executive of Foodics, said: “Restaurants generate valuable performance data every day, and we believe that data should do more than help them understand their business, it should help them grow it. With a target of SAR 375 million in funding in the first year, our ambition is to make Foodics a financial partner that supports the growth of our restaurants across the region.”
Abdullah Tahboub, chief financial officer at Foodics, said: “A restaurant can be growing, generating healthy revenues and demonstrating strong performance, yet still struggle to secure funding at the moment it needs it most. Capital 2.0 is about closing that gap.”
An upgrade, not a first move into lending
Foodics has offered restaurant financing since 2020, when it launched Foodics Capital, a $100 million Shariah-compliant micro-lending arm built with local financing provider Maalem Finance and approved by the Saudi Central Bank. That original product extended loans between roughly $5,000 and $133,000. Capital 2.0’s top end, SAR 2 million, or roughly $533,000, and its SAR 375 million first-year target represent a substantially larger ceiling and scale than the 2020 product, alongside the shift from a more manual approval process to automated, data-driven pre-qualification.
Foodics was founded in 2014 according to the company’s own materials, though independent reporting has previously dated its founding, by Ahmad AlZaini and Musab Alothmani, to 2016. The company has raised $198 million in total funding, including a $170 million Series C round in April 2022 led by Prosus and Sanabil Investments, at the time the largest SaaS Series C round in the MENA region. Foodics reported $6 billion in gross merchandise value and 29% revenue growth in the first half of 2025.
Part of a broader financial push
Capital 2.0 is one of several financial capabilities Foodics showcased at Money20/20, alongside expanded omni-channel payment solutions, new reconciliation and instant settlement features, and an evolution of its MyFoodics App into what the company describes as a single account for managing sales, cash, payouts and access to capital. Foodics has not disclosed how many restaurants have been pre-qualified since launch, a breakdown of approval rates, or how the SAR 375 million first-year target was calculated relative to the platform’s existing merchant base.
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