SC Ventures, the fintech investment and venture-building arm of Standard Chartered, has invested in Riyadh-based embedded finance startup Vrtx, the companies said on Monday.
Vrtx has closed a $3.6 million pre-seed funding round. Investors in the round include SC Ventures, Sadu Capital, BYLD, Suhail Ventures, F6 Ventures, TAZ Investment and Palm Ventures, CairoScene reported. The size of SC Ventures’ investment was not disclosed.
The startup has received in-principle approval from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) for an electronic money institution license.
Subject to regulatory approval, Vrtx plans to let businesses build digital wallets, card issuance, payment processing, payouts and customer identity checks into their own products through a modular platform and application programming interfaces (APIs). It is targeting companies in sectors including fintech, logistics and human resources.
Vrtx was founded by Mishal Bin Slimah and Omar Shaaban, who previously worked at Saudi fintech Tweeq, according to CairoScene.
“Companies with a clear idea and real demand spend years assembling core infrastructure, operations and security before they serve a single customer,” Bin Slimah said. “Our goal is to make fintech capability a standard building block for any business.”
Gabriel Heredia, SC Ventures’ country lead for Saudi Arabia, said Vrtx “is establishing the partnerships and regulatory foundations required to scale embedded finance in the Kingdom.”
SC Ventures has deployed more than $1 billion across more than 30 portfolio companies globally since 2018, according to the statement. In the Middle East, it has grown from two ventures to 10 in two years across the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
In February 2026, SC Ventures signed a memorandum of understanding with Sanabil Studio to co-build fintech ventures for small and medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia.
