Press release:
mamun, the Sharia-compliant platform building capital infrastructure for trade finance, has raised a US$3 million seed round led by Phaze Ventures through its Oman Fund, with participation from Jasoor Ventures.
An exporter in Muscat ships today and gets paid in 60 to 90 days. Banks rarely bridge that gap, as they usually rely on a long financial track record that many small exporters find hard to provide. The Asian Development Bank puts the global trade finance gap at US$2.5 trillion, and 41% of SME trade finance applications are turned down.
mamun's AI-native underwriting assesses the company behind the trade, alongside the shipment itself: the contract, the buyer, the trade documents and the trading history between them. Its origination engine finds and screens that trade as it forms. Then investors on the platform finance the gap.
The hard part is the border. A cross-border transaction spans two regulators, two banking systems and two legal regimes, with settlement that has to land in another jurisdiction on time, and the collateral is in motion, travelling with the goods along the route.
That complexity is why most of the region's financing platforms have stayed domestic, and it is mamun's moat. The platform was built across the corridor: an FSA-regulated home and origination base in Muscat; Abu Dhabi for Gulf capital and UAE flows; and Hong Kong SAR, the financing gateway of the Belt and Road Initiative, for the Greater Bay Area and the Gulf–Asia trade routes.
Roughly 40% of the platform's trade finance settlements already clear through Hong Kong-based financial institutions and businesses.
mamun's licence sits within the FSA's crowdfunding framework, which allows the platform to bring in investors from inside and outside the Sultanate, and to finance companies inside and outside the Sultanate, subject to the platform's eligibility criteria and the laws applicable in each investor's country.
The corridor is growing. Oman's non-oil exports ran about 10% higher year-on-year through the first seven months of 2026 and re-exports 13.6% higher, with the UAE its largest non-oil trading partner. New corridors bring new counterparties: businesses trading together for the first time, with no shared history for a lender to underwrite against.
The round brings together capital from Oman and the UAE: Phaze Ventures invests through its Oman Fund, dedicated to homegrown, AI-enabled Omani businesses, and Jasoor Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm backing technology founders across the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey.
The US$3 million will scale that AI-native origination and underwriting, growing the volume of trade the platform can originate, assess and finance along the Greater Bay Area – Oman – UAE corridor. It is where the industry is heading: 84% of banks in the Asian Development Bank's January 2026 survey already apply AI to trade finance risk. mamun was built that way from origination onward.
"The businesses moving goods between the Gulf and Asia are growing faster than the financing behind them. We built mamun in Muscat, under Omani regulation, to serve trade along the corridor between the Gulf and Asia. This round scales that engine — and the corridor it serves."
— Saleh Al Tamami · Co-Founder & CEO, mamun
"Our thesis is backing the homegrown companies that turn Oman's diversification agenda into regional infrastructure. mamun is exactly that — structured across the corridor, and built by a team that has executed quietly and precisely. It is a natural commitment from the Oman Fund."
— Abdullah Al Shaksy · Co-Founder & CEO, Phaze Ventures
mamun was founded by Saleh Al Tamami, Co-Founder & CEO, Mohammed Al Tamami, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer, and Ahmed Al-Issaei, Co-Founder & CTO, and was named a Rising Star on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Middle East 2025, ranking 26th.