A few years ago, Dr. Zain Farooq was an oncologist who had co-founded a small Pakistani fintech called MyTM, and this week the Saudi company that acquired it closed a Series A round that pushed its valuation past the billion-dollar mark.
Saudi digital payments company barq has raised $329.5 million in a Series A round at a valuation of $1.85 billion, with participation from Noon Investments, Sohar International Bank and M20 Fund. The round gives barq unicorn status, a milestone the company says places it among the fastest in the region to reach a $1 billion valuation, and it arrives less than three years after barq received its e-wallet licence from the Saudi Central Bank. For Farooq, who now leads the group’s Pakistan business as Managing Director of barq PK, the news was more than a headline about a company in another country. In a LinkedIn post announcing the round, he described the milestone as personal and wrote that the Pakistan team is “not watching this journey from the sidelines,” but is working as part of “one barq, one Group” toward a shared ambition.
A wallet built for a country of many nationalities
barq was founded in 2023 by Ahmed Alenazi, and it began operating publicly after securing its e-wallet licence from the Saudi Central Bank in January 2024. The early response gave an indication of the demand it was tapping into: users moved $133 million through the platform in its first three weeks, and it passed one million sign-ups soon after. The product itself is a personal digital wallet with high monthly limits, combined with international remittances and physical and virtual payment cards. On top of those core services, barq has added features such as travel insurance, subscription management and airport lounge access, which together position it as an everyday financial app rather than a simple payments tool.
The platform’s user base reflects the diversity of Saudi Arabia’s population. By July 2025, barq was reported to have passed 7 million users from 150 nationalities, having issued 6.5 million cards and processed 500 million transactions worth SAR 73 billion. Today, according to the company and Farooq’s post, barq serves more than 15 million users from over 210 nationalities, and the total value processed through the platform has exceeded SAR 440 billion, or roughly $117 billion, within two years of operation. That means the user base has more than doubled in a little over a year, while the value moving through the platform has grown roughly sixfold over the same period.
barq has said it will use the new capital to invest in new financial and technology solutions, improve operational efficiency, and continue developing its products and services. The larger ambition, however, lies outside the Kingdom, as the company plans to expand into new regional and international markets on the back of the scale it has built at home. How barq deploys the money across technology, products, talent and new markets will shape its next phase, and the test will be whether a platform built for Saudi Arabia’s users can carry its momentum into countries with different regulators, competitors and customer habits.
The round also came during a particularly active few days for Saudi fintech. Buy-now-pay-later company Tabby raised $233 million at a $6.5 billion valuation in a round led by Blue Pool Capital, while regulated finance platform Tarabut secured $50 million in financing as it sharpens its focus on Saudi Arabia. Taken together, the three deals show that investors remain willing to write large cheques for Saudi financial technology companies that have already demonstrated scale. Farooq, in his post, credited Alenazi and his team for building barq “at extraordinary speed” and linked the company’s rise to the momentum behind Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector under Vision 2030.
How barq found its way to Pakistan
barq’s route into Pakistan ran through Farooq’s own company. As Farooq explained in an intervuew last year, barq entered the country by acquiring the Saudi, Pakistani and UAE subsidiaries of MyTM, and the Pakistani entity, formerly MYTM Pvt Ltd, now operates as Barq Fintech Pvt Limited under the barq PK name, with Mansoor Mehboob Chaudhry as Chief Executive Officer and Farooq as Managing Director. The group laid some of the groundwork early. The more significant step came in October 2025, when the State Bank of Pakistan granted barq PK in-principle approval to establish an electronic money institution wallet. The approval, received on October 10, followed the SBP’s initial evaluation of the company’s business model, ownership, governance, security, risk and compliance arrangements.
In-principle approval is only the first stage of the process, however. Under the SBP’s framework, barq PK must meet the central bank’s remaining conditions and successfully complete a pilot phase before it can apply for commercial approval and a full EMI licence. Once it is fully licensed, the company plans to introduce e-wallets, mobile payments and everyday transaction tools in Pakistan, built in line with the SBP’s regulatory and security frameworks.
The Series A does not change the regulatory path in front of barq PK, since the timing of any launch in Pakistan will depend on the pilot and on the SBP’s decision rather than on the size of the parent company’s latest raise. What it does change is the backing behind the Pakistani team led by Chaudhry and Farooq, which now belongs to a group with fresh capital, a stated plan to expand beyond Saudi Arabia, and a user base that has more than doubled in a little over a year.
Farooq closed his announcement post by summing up the moment in a single line: “Big numbers. Bigger responsibility. Even bigger ambition.” For barq PK, the next chapter will be written in Pakistan, and its first milestone will be the regulator’s approval.
