• Saudi Arabia-based Aajil Capital, a sister firm to industrial financing platform Aajil, has received a Capital Market Authority (CMA) licence to conduct Managing Investments activity in the securities business.
• The company has not yet commenced regulated activities and will begin operations after completing the CMA’s commencement-of-business requirements.
• Once operational, Aajil Capital plans to provide Shariah-compliant investment management services, giving investors exposure to Saudi Arabia’s industrial SME sector. Any investment fund offering will require the necessary CMA approval.
• Aajil Capital intends to build its investment strategy on the origination infrastructure and transaction data generated by sister company Aajil, an AI-driven platform providing industrial SMEs with raw materials on deferred payment terms.
• Aajil says it has supplied SAR 600 million ($160 million) worth of materials to manufacturers, contractors and traders across Saudi Arabia as of 31 August 2026.
• Aajil Capital is chaired by Abdulla Sheikh and led by CEO and CIO Faisal Chowdhry, a former Goldman Sachs executive.

Press release:

Aajil Capital, a Saudi joint stock company under establishment, today announced that it has received a licence from the Capital Market Authority (CMA), licence No. 26358-02, to conduct Managing Investments activity in the securities business, under a resolution of the Authority's Board dated 22 June 2026, and is preparing to commence operations in the Kingdom. The firm will commence the activity once it completes the CMA's commencement-of-business requirements.

Once it has commenced business, Aajil Capital intends to provide investment management services, giving investors access to the Kingdom's industrial SME sector in a manner compliant with Shariah principles. Any investment fund offering would be subject to obtaining the necessary licence from the CMA. The sector is one of the priority sectors of Vision 2030 and the National Industrial Strategy and one that has, until now, been difficult to reach at scale.

The opportunity is substantial. Saudi Arabia's construction pipeline alone exceeds USD 1.7 trillion, and the Kingdom is targeting 36,000 factories by 2035, up from roughly 12,000 today. Yet only around 9 percent of bank credit reaches SMEs, against a Vision 2030 target of 20 percent. That gap leaves the industrial supply chain that every giga-project, factory, and infrastructure programme depends on underserved.

Aajil Capital is the sister firm to Aajil, the AI-driven platform that supplies SMEs in Saudi Arabia's industrial supply chain on deferred payment terms. Aajil purchases the materials industrial SMEs require and pays their suppliers directly. Each SME then settles with Aajil over an agreed term, on Shariah-compliant terms aligned to its cash cycle. Built entirely in-house, the platform underwrites in hours rather than weeks and moves materials within days, and it had supplied SAR 600 million of materials to manufacturers, contractors and traders across the Kingdom as of 31 August 2026.

Each transaction adds to what Aajil understands about the sector: which SMEs settle, on what terms, and against what work. That accumulated record is the origination infrastructure on which Aajil Capital's investment strategy is built.

"Receiving our licence from the CMA marks an important milestone for Aajil Capital and reflects our long-term commitment to Saudi Arabia's industrial economy," said Abdulla Sheikh, Chairman of Aajil Capital. "Once we complete the CMA's requirements and commence activity, we will open to investors the same sector Aajil has served for years."

Faisal Chowdhry, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Aajil Capital, spent 16 years at Goldman Sachs. As an Executive Director in London, he was globally responsible for due diligence on the firm's consumer and MSME financial services transactions, with a particular focus on financial technology across lending, payments and microfinance, and held compliance risk responsibility for Marcus by Goldman Sachs, the bank's consumer platform in the United Kingdom. He spent the five years before that in the firm's alternative investments business, within its European Special Situations Group, and began his career in New York in its Structured Products and Private Equity Funding groups. He holds an MSc in Finance from London Business School.

"Saudi Arabia's industrial SMEs sit at the centre of the Kingdom's manufacturing and construction growth, yet investors have had no practical way to hold that exposure," Chowdhry said. "Aajil Capital exists to close that gap. Once we complete the CMA's requirements and commence activity, our focus is building Shariah-compliant investment strategies that give institutional investors disciplined access to short-dated, asset-backed exposure to the sector, underpinned by origination infrastructure that is already operating at scale."

Aajil Capital will complete the CMA's commencement-of-business requirements before conducting any regulated activity. Further announcements will be made in due course.

Aajil Capital's board comprises Abdulla Sheikh (Chairman), Ihsan Jawad, and Abdulelah Al Saleh. The firm is led by Faisal Chowdhry as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer.