Turning a small business's future revenue into working capital it can use today.
Revenue-based & invoice financing for emerging-market SMEs
Flow48 is a Dubai-headquartered fintech built around a single, stubborn problem: the small and medium businesses that keep emerging-market economies running often cannot get a loan when they need one. Banks want collateral and time. Growth doesn't wait for either.
The company's answer is to lend against what a business actually does rather than what it owns. Flow48 advances working capital priced off a company's revenue and unpaid invoices - up to $20 million per client - and typically disburses funds within 24 to 48 hours. There is no equity dilution and no traditional collateral requirement.
Under the hood is a proprietary underwriting engine. It pulls detailed data from bank statements, invoices and payment systems, forecasts a business's cash flow, and sets a lending limit from that forecast. The enrollment-to-approval flow is largely digital, which is how a decision that takes a bank weeks can take Flow48 a day or two.
Founded in 2022, Flow48 operates across the UAE and South Africa and is expanding into Saudi Arabia. It has raised $92.7 million to date, most recently a $69 million Series A in February 2025. The through-line is speed and access - getting usable capital to businesses that the traditional system tends to route around.
The name itself carries the pitch. "Flow" is cash flow; "48" is the window - money in the account inside two days. For a business fulfilling a large order or covering a seasonal dip, that timing is often the whole point.
Turn Your Future Revenue Into Working Capital Today.- Flow48 brand tagline
A cash crunch never arrives on schedule. Flow48 offers two financing products so a business can unlock money it is owed or money it is about to earn - plus the engine that prices both.
Working capital advanced against future revenue, with repayments linked to cash-flow cycles. Built for businesses with steady, recurring income that want to grow without giving up equity.
Converts unpaid invoices into immediate cash, so a business waiting 30, 60 or 90 days on a customer payment doesn't have to stall while the money is in transit.
A proprietary risk model forecasts cash flow from bank, invoice and payment data to set limits and approve funding fast - the machinery behind the 24-48 hour promise.
Create an account with basic business details.
Register business and banking information.
Upload documents - bank statements and invoices.
Review and select a personalized funding offer.
Receive funds within 24 to 48 hours.
Flow48 is on track to become a full-service fintech solution for SMEs, expanding into insurance, payments and other financial services.- Enrique Martinez Hausmann, Principal at Speedinvest
Small and medium-sized enterprises across the UAE and South Africa - and, increasingly, Saudi Arabia - that hit cash-flow gaps: managing seasonal dips, fulfilling large orders, or funding a growth opportunity. Flow48 serves customers across a range of industries, not a single vertical.
Emerging markets have no shortage of viable businesses - they have a shortage of capital that reaches those businesses fast enough. Traditional lenders ask for collateral and take weeks to decide. Many good SMEs simply don't fit that mold, so they wait, or they don't get funded at all.
Owners keep 100% of their equity. Financing is repaid from revenue - no board seats, no ownership traded away to cover a purchase order.
Instead of pledged assets, Flow48 underwrites on live business performance - the data a company already generates every day.
When capital is needed, a decision in 48 hours can beat a better rate that arrives in six weeks. Flow48 is engineered around that trade-off.
Flow48's trajectory is a compressed one. Just over a year after founding, it closed a $25 million pre-Series A in November 2023. Fifteen months later, in February 2025, it raised a $69 million Series A - a blend of debt and equity led by Paris-based Breega - to scale across MENA and enter Saudi Arabia.
The blended debt-and-equity structure is deliberate: equity funds the company, debt funds the loan book it lends from.
Co-Founder & CEO of Flow48. Before fintech, an unusually varied resume.
Idriss Al Rifai - half French, half Iraqi - played professional basketball in Paris and served in the French special forces before moving into business. After an MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School and a stint at The Boston Consulting Group, he co-founded Fetchr, a last-mile logistics company built to solve the Middle East's "no-address" problem. Fetchr grew into a GCC operation of roughly 5,000 people.
With Flow48, founded in 2022 alongside co-founder Karim Khattar, Al Rifai turned from moving parcels to moving capital - applying the same instinct for unglamorous, structural problems to the SME funding gap. The stated mission: to be the premier alternative financing partner for SMEs in MENA and South Africa.
Traditional banks in the region offer working-capital loans, but with collateral requirements and slow approvals. Flow48's edge is the combination of non-dilutive, collateral-free terms and a data-driven underwriting engine that turns a weeks-long process into a 24-48 hour one. It competes less on headline rate and more on access and speed.
Flow48 sits among a growing set of MENA and emerging-market SME-financing fintechs - including players like Kema - alongside regional revenue-based and invoice-financing providers, and the incumbent banks whose gaps created the opening in the first place.
Flow48 earns financing fees on capital it advances to SMEs, funding that lending through a blend of equity and debt, and pricing each deal off real revenue and invoices rather than fixed assets.
Its chosen markets - the UAE, South Africa and now Saudi Arabia - are full of businesses that legacy lenders find too hard to score. That is the harder path, and the more open one.
Al Rifai co-founds last-mile logistics startup Fetchr, tackling the region's "no-address" problem.
A new company in Dubai, built to close the SME working-capital gap through revenue-based financing.
A blend of equity and debt from investors including Speedinvest funds expansion into South Africa.
A round led by Breega scales the company across MENA and opens the door to Saudi Arabia.
It provides fast, non-dilutive, collateral-free working capital to small and medium businesses by turning their future revenue and unpaid invoices into upfront cash - typically within 24 to 48 hours.
Flow48 offers flexible financing of up to $20 million per client, with limits set by the business's revenue and invoices via a proprietary underwriting engine.
It currently serves SMEs in the UAE and South Africa, with expansion underway into Saudi Arabia.
Flow48 was founded in 2022 by Idriss Al Rifai (Co-Founder & CEO), who previously built logistics company Fetchr, along with co-founder Karim Khattar.
Flow48 raised a $25 million pre-Series A in November 2023 and a $69 million Series A (a blend of debt and equity, led by Breega) in February 2025 - $92.7 million in total.
Figures reflect publicly reported data as of 2025. Some totals are approximate.