Collecting debts on emerging markets often seems outdated and will be expensive – destroying the borrower’s trust. Because consumer growths and regulatory bodies strive for fair practices, costumes from the Legacy collection are fighting to maintain the pace.
Cleargrid It goals to help modernize the debt collection – and recovery – with AI. The startup from Dubai, which emerges with Stealth with financing $ 10 million ($ 3.5 million seeds and $ 6.5 million), helps banks, fintechs and lenders to recuperate more debts without resorting to harassing customers.
In the case of a startup founded in May 2023, the foundation is significant. Co -founder and general director (*10*)Mohammad al ZazeN He called this a key advantage for “a very ambitious company with a large mission on a very large market.”
Building a collection of debts directed by AI
Al Zaben got here across a collection of debts after selling his previous startup, Munch: Next, to Carem in 2022. During the exit, Al Zaben says that he thought about one of Munch: for the biggest challenges – collecting payments from corporate clients.
This led to the rabbit hole to manage receivables and unpaid invoices. After further reflection, Al Zaben realized that consumer collections were an even greater problem.
“When we talked to collectors, it was clear that the industry got stuck in the past – some agencies still used a pen and paper, and the most advanced were the basic CRM,” said Al Zaben. “The debt collection was a company that runs people in which collectors resisted fear and harassment on tactics. The borrowers had a terrible experience, and the regulatory bodies of Saudi and Zea began to prioritize consumer protection.”
At the same time, consumer loans bloom. Buy now, pay later (bnpl) unicorns, comparable to Tabby and Tamara, support billions of sales, and unsecured credit sums have increased rapidly in the Middle East.
Al Zaben and his co -founders, KhAlid Bin Bader Al Saud AND Mohammad al-KHAreI sensed the opportunity. Despite the lack of experience on the collection market, they launched Cleargrid, creating software and artificial intelligence to improve recovery and cooperation with existing suppliers in space.
“At a time when borrowing blooms, the regulations get worse, and AI transforms the industries, we perceive this as an opportunity to help lenders in recovering debt while building trust with borrowers,” said the director.
“This is just the first step in building infrastructure for the future of debt resolution,” added Al Saud.
Automated elements of the collection
Cleargrid sits between lenders and borrowers, using artificial intelligence to automate the collection process. Lenders integrate via the API Cleargrid platform or interface, sending the borrower bills for processing.
The company claims that its AI models receive things like the likelihood of repayment, help to predict customer behavior and personalize the range in communication channels.
According to Al Zała, 95% of Cleargrid’s activities are fully automated, including AI voice agents, which serve tons of of 1000’s of connections every day. For borrowers preferring interpersonal interaction, the platform facilitates direct conversations and transmits insight into many startup models.
The Cleargrid platform classifies borrowers based on their ability and readiness to pay, and then the repayment structure into smaller, possible fragments, encouraging them to be repaid without coercion. The company claims that its platform can reduce debt collection costs by 50%.
“We build specially built tools and find ways to improve lenders in what they do, while creating consumers the opportunity to get out of debts,” said Al Zaben.
Since the launch in 2024, Cleargrid claims that he managed tons of of hundreds of thousands in debt wallets and signed 10 important fintechs and banks in the United Arab Emirates. The nameless large bank increased the recovery rate by 30% and reduced the cost of downloading by half, says Cleargrid, and the leading BNPL supplier doubled its recovery by automating the resolution of debt resolution at an early stage.
In the entire management board, Al Zaben claims that Cleargrid solves long twice as faster than traditional debt collection agencies, reaching from 38% to 50% improvement in resolution rates, while the borrowers interact with the platform with 60% greater than with these agencies.
Cleargrid earns money by charging a percentage fee from recovered amounts. The startup revenues are growing by 30% of the month in the United Arab Emirates, where Cleargrid is already profitable, and the company wants to enter Saudi Arabia this yr according to Al Zaben.
Al Zaben said with the finance collected, Cleargrid strives for 10x “revenues and accounts managed in 2024 (acts of over 130,000 borrowers’ bills every month). The company also plans to double its engineering team in the next fiscal quart region. “
Cleargrid investors are VCS Middle East and North Africa Beco Capital, Nuwa Capital and Raed Ventures, in addition to outstanding investors of angels comparable to Anu Hariharan (ex-yc, founder of AVRA), Amjad Masad (CEO of replit CEO), Jason Gardner (founder and ex-ceo of marqeta) and Justin Kan (co-founder Twitch).