Abdullah Aljeraiwi and the homework behind easier investing

Before Abdullah Aljeraiwi and Saleh Alaqeel were building an investment business together, they were on the same university research team. In 2019, representing King Saud University in the CFA Institute Research Challenge, they finished second. Aljeraiwi thanked his teammates and mentors in a public post and described the experience as something he would cherish for years. An early career announcement had accidentally acquired a second purpose: it preserved a small piece of Abyan Capital’s prehistory.

There is something pleasing about a financial technology company whose founders once had to do the homework. Research competitions require a view on a business, an argument that survives questions, and colleagues who can help make it. Three years later, the product Aljeraiwi brought to Saudi investors would ask its users to do rather less of that work themselves.

The connection is worth keeping in view as the numbers get larger. Aljeraiwi is the co-founder and CEO of Abyan Capital, a Saudi investment company that began offering its app in August 2022. His story follows a particular progression: learning to examine investments, taking responsibility for businesses, and then building a service intended to make investing easier for other people.

A teammate before a co-founder

Aljeraiwi graduated from King Saud University with a bachelor’s degree in finance in 2019. His early professional experience included a cooperative placement in Jadwa Investment’s research department. When that placement ended, he publicly thanked the colleagues who had supported him. The names took up much of the message. It was a farewell with room for the people who had done the teaching.

By June 2020, he was working as equity manager at Manafa Capital, a position he held until November 2021. The next entry in his career was board member and CEO of Abyan. Those dates help separate two events that can easily be collapsed into one: taking up the leadership job in 2021 and putting the investment app into the market in 2022.

His professional education continued alongside the jobs. He passed CFA Level II in 2021. Passing that exam is a specific achievement; it carries its own weight without needing a more elaborate title attached. The developing picture is of a young finance graduate accumulating practical work, examinations, and corporate responsibilities in a relatively short period.

The university teammate reappears in the company story. Alaqeel became Abyan’s co-founder and chief operating officer. Omar Almania is also named among its founders. The 2019 competition does not explain every decision that followed, but it supplies a concrete connection between two people who would later build together. A future business partnership was already present in the list of people being thanked.

Start with the person holding the money

In October 2022, shortly after the app’s launch, Aljeraiwi appeared on the Arabic podcast Socrates. The episode’s title was refreshingly direct: “How, when and where do you invest?” It put the individual at the centre of a discussion that also covered saving, assets, financial freedom, and the creation of Abyan.

One idea in the conversation gives the company’s mission a more human scale. Before working out how to save, a person should understand why they are saving and what they expect from it. The order matters. An account can be opened quickly. Deciding what the money is for is a more personal piece of work.

That sequence also makes an interesting demand on a founder. A financial product has to accommodate people arriving with different levels of knowledge. Some understand asset allocation. Others simply want a workable way to begin. Aljeraiwi’s stated ambition was to simplify personal investment across that range of experience.

Abyan’s approach included automated portfolio management and Sharia-compliant investment and savings options. By the time of its 2024 funding announcement, its offerings included children’s portfolios and recurring investments made through payment cards. These are telling product choices. They place the service near ordinary household decisions: setting something aside for a child, or making a contribution repeat without having to remember it every month.

The billion-riyal milestone had a date

On 2 May 2024, Abyan announced a Series A financing of SAR68 million, or $18 million, with STV, Wa’ed Ventures, and RZM Investment participating. For Aljeraiwi, the announcement was an opportunity to put numbers next to the original ambition. Abyan had exceeded SAR1.4 billion in deposits and invested more than 100,000 portfolios.

Those were company milestones at that moment in its development. Deposits describe money brought to the platform, and portfolios describe investment accounts or arrangements. Keeping the labels attached makes the achievement easier to understand. The amounts also belong to the business and its customers; they are a measure of the undertaking Aljeraiwi was leading.

He also described an ambition to build a digital retail investment house. The phrase suggests a larger destination than a single portfolio product. An investment house can meet several needs as a customer’s circumstances change. Making that idea work on a phone requires both a useful front door and substantial machinery behind it.

In practice, his role would increasingly sit across those two demands. Customers encounter deposits, withdrawals, portfolio information, and the experience of using an app. The company has to organise the investment operations, technology, and responsibilities that support them. As the range of services grew, so did the work contained in the apparently modest promise of making things simpler.

“digital retail investment house”

Abdullah Aljeraiwi’s stated ambition for Abyan · May 2024

A handshake, then a second app

In September 2025, Abyan and Derayah Financial signed a memorandum of understanding at Money20/20 Middle East. The proposed cooperation concerned digital trading, technical integration, and making transactions easier for retail investors. Aljeraiwi’s public comments concentrated on access to opportunities and the efficiency of the investment experience.

The signing photograph captures the ceremonial part of that work: two representatives, a table, and a handshake. The agreement itself points towards less photogenic tasks. Integration is where a customer’s request must pass between systems and become a completed transaction. A ceremony can fit into one frame. The work it announces rarely does.

Later that year, Abyan introduced Abyan Trading for access to US markets. Aljeraiwi described the launch as a response to Saudi investors’ demand for a clear experience consistent with Islamic principles. The product brought the company into a different relationship with its customers: people could make their own trading decisions through an Arabic-language interface.

By November 2025, he was discussing a business with funds and portfolios exceeding SAR3 billion and more than 500,000 investors. These later figures broaden the picture beyond the early app launch. They also make the expansion into trading easier to place: a company that had begun with investment and savings services was adding another way for its audience to participate.

Even the clock became a product question

In December 2025, Abyan announced a 24-hour US-market trading feature. Aljeraiwi’s explanation was rooted in an everyday scheduling problem: many customers had free time after the market’s official close. The company had worked on overnight trading so they could follow and execute transactions at times that suited them.

It is a revealing detail because it makes “access” quite literal. A service can be available on someone’s phone and still be inconvenient at the hour they can use it. His comments brought a practical consideration into the product’s development: the customer also has a life outside the market.

The feature added flexibility to an expanding product range. It also returned to the question running through his public account of Abyan: what must change in the service to fit the person using it? Earlier answers included recurring contributions and portfolios for children. Here, the answer involved the clock.

The quieter work of responsibility

Alongside Abyan, Aljeraiwi has held corporate governance positions. His Hail Cement board service ran from November 2021 to July 2024, including work on its nomination and remuneration committee. He also served on DRC’s board between March 2021 and November 2023. Those roles put his career beyond the boundaries of a single fintech company.

In July 2026, Dkhoun National Trading announced him as chair of its audit committee for a four-year term, as an independent member from outside the board. That appointment belongs to the less theatrical side of a financial career: oversight, accounts, and the questions that help an organisation examine its own workings.

Set beside the university competition, the progression has a satisfying continuity. Aljeraiwi began by working with colleagues to understand a business and defend an assessment of it. He went on to lead a business that helps other people invest, while taking on responsibilities for examining how companies operate.

The personal thread remains visible beneath the milestones: a teammate thanked in 2019 becomes a co-founder; a conversation about why people save becomes a product mission; a customer’s free evening becomes a reason to change trading hours. Aljeraiwi’s career gives those small details a place beside the funding rounds. Finance contains plenty of large numbers. The decisions that make it usable often begin at a rather smaller scale.