Bahrain has emerged as one of the top three markets in the GCC for private debt, according to a major new report tracking the region’s rapidly evolving startup financing ecosystem.

The ‘Global Private Debt Report 2026: A Venture & Growth Credit Lens’, released yesterday by Stride Ventures, reveals that private debt in the region, which comprises venture debt and growth credit, skyrocketed by a staggering 8.2 times year-on-year.

Total deployments across the GCC reached $4.1 billion in 2025, up from approximately $0.5bn in 2024, as regional founders increasingly turn to structured credit as non-dilutive capital to fuel expansion, acquisitions, and platform scale.

According to the report, Saudi Arabia led the region’s structured credit deployments with an overwhelming share of approximately $3.9bn. The UAE followed in second place with approximately $211 million, while Bahrain firmly secured its position among the top three regional markets by capturing $22m in deployments.

The findings mark a significant structural shift in the GCC’s overall funding mix. Out of $7.4bn in total tracked startup investments across the region in 2025, private debt contributed $4.1bn, outpacing traditional venture capital (VC) which brought in $3.3bn.

The surge is heavily driven by the fintech sector, which dominated the market by accounting for 95.5 per cent of total private debt deployment, equivalent to roughly $3.9bn. Outside of financial technology, credit activity was also recorded in agritech, proptech, SaaS, and logistics.

The report highlights that fintech platforms are bypassing traditional private equity leverage stages seen in mature global markets, choosing instead to access institutional credit earlier in their growth cycles to finance lending books, receivables, and asset-backed growth.

Among the largest regional transactions driving these numbers were Saudi Arabia’s Tamara ($2.4bn) and Lendo ($740m), alongside the UAE’s CredibleX ($100m) and Kitopi ($50m). 

Experts attribute the rise of private debt to robust sovereign-backed capital, regulatory enablement, and policy-led acceleration programmes. Key entities supporting this ecosystem include Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Jada Fund of Funds, and Sanabil Investments, alongside the UAE’s Mubadala and ADQ.

“The GCC’s private debt market has moved from early exploration to institutional conviction,” said Stride Ventures partner for GCC and Global Capital Formation Fariha Ansari Javed.

“What stands out is not just the scale of deployment and participation of the region’s largest sovereign wealth funds, but the fact that credit is entering the capital stack earlier in the company lifecycle, especially across fintech and asset-backed models.”

Ms. Javed added that Stride Ventures is committed to reaching $500m in assets under management (AUM) across the region by the end of 2028. Unlike western ecosystems where financing typically follows a strict staged progression, GCC startups are integrating structured debt much earlier in their scaling journeys, often concurrently with equity at Series A all the way through to pre-IPO stages.

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