Oman's mamun raises $3 million to widen Gulf–Asia trade finance

mamun, a fintech based in Muscat, has raised $3 million in seed funding to widen a Shariah-compliant trade finance platform that pairs businesses with investors. Phaze Ventures led the round through its Oman Fund. Jasoor Ventures, a UAE-based early-stage venture capital firm, also took part.

The company was founded in 2019 by Saleh Al Tamami, Mohammed Al Tamami and Ahmed Al-Issaei. They hold the chief executive, chief commercial officer and chief technology officer roles respectively. mamun is headquartered in Muscat and keeps entities in Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong, a footprint that maps onto both ends of the trade route it targets.

The problem it addresses is a timing mismatch. A Muscat exporter typically ships goods today and waits 60 to 90 days to be paid. Banks rarely close that window, because they require long financial track records that many small exporters do not have. The Asian Development Bank estimates the global trade finance gap at $2.5 trillion. Small and medium-sized enterprises fare worse than larger borrowers: 41% of their trade finance applications are rejected.

The platform finances imports, exports and working capital, connecting companies that need funding with investors willing to supply it through Shariah-compliant structures. Underwriting has to run on documents rather than years of audited accounts, which is why mamun leans on AI to assess businesses, buyers, contracts, shipping documents and trading histories. The new capital goes into trade origination and underwriting capacity on that engine.

Regulatory cover comes from Oman's Financial Services Authority, which licensed mamun under its crowdfunding framework. The licence allows the company to bring in investors from inside and outside Oman and to finance companies inside and outside the country, subject to eligibility criteria and local laws. For a firm whose customers sit on both sides of a border, that scope is the point.

Cross-border trade finance is the harder version of the business. A single transaction can span two regulators, two banking systems and two legal regimes, and the collateral backing it travels with the goods along the route. Most platforms in the region have stayed domestic. mamun's structure is an attempt to operate in several markets at once.

That shapes how risk gets assessed. A lender looking at one balance sheet in one jurisdiction sees only part of the picture. mamun underwrites the transaction itself, reading the buyer, the contract and the shipping documents, then prices it for investors who take on that slice of exposure.

Abu Dhabi is the base for Gulf capital and UAE flows. Hong Kong is the gateway for Greater Bay Area traffic and Gulf–Asia routes. About 40% of mamun's trade finance settlements already pass through Hong Kong-based institutions and businesses, which gives the corridor argument some operating history behind it.

The $3 million is aimed at cross-border deals along a Greater Bay Area–Oman–UAE corridor rather than at domestic lending. Oman's own trade figures point the same way. Non-oil exports rose about 10% year on year in the first seven months of 2026, and re-exports climbed 13.6% over the same stretch. The UAE is the sultanate's largest non-oil trading partner. Re-exports matter for a platform that finances goods moving through a port rather than goods made there.

Saleh Al Tamami, the chief executive, said businesses moving goods between the Gulf and Asia are growing faster than the financing behind them, and that the round scales mamun's engine along with the corridor it serves.

Abdullah Al Shaksy, co-founder and chief executive of Phaze Ventures, said the investment backs homegrown companies that turn Oman's diversification agenda into regional infrastructure. The firm's Oman Fund is dedicated to Omani businesses built around AI. Jasoor Ventures backs technology founders across the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey at the early stage.

AI underwriting is becoming a baseline rather than an edge. In a January 2026 Asian Development Bank survey, 84% of banks said they already apply the technology to trade finance risk. mamun was named a Rising Star and ranked 26th on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Middle East 2025.

The wager is not that AI prices trade risk better than a bank does, since most banks already use it. It is that a licensed non-bank originator can take the transactions banks turn away and fund them from investors rather than from a balance sheet. Oman's crowdfunding framework is what makes the cross-border version possible, letting a Muscat-licensed firm raise money abroad and deploy it abroad. For a small exporter waiting out a 60-day payment gap, that is a different kind of counterparty.