Fintech Weekly: Tabby's $6.5B Round, Grab's $1.49B BNPL Deal

A week that turned BNPL into a licensing race

The fintech news cycle this week centered on two deals that share the same underlying story: buy now, pay later companies converting themselves into regulated, multi-product financial platforms. Saudi-headquartered Tabby raised $233 million in a Series F round that values the company at $6.5 billion 9111213, while Singapore's Grab agreed to pay $1.49 billion for a 60% stake in Atome Financial, with a path to full ownership two years later 1617181920. Both deals used installment payments as the entry point, but both are ultimately wagers on lending, wallets and data — not checkout buttons.

Around those two headline transactions, FinTech Global's weekly tracker recorded 21 deals totaling $858 million raised across the sector, a sharp drop from the prior week's $4.5 billion, a figure that had been inflated by Mistral's giant €3 billion round 910. Financial infrastructure led deal count this week with eight rounds, followed by payments technology, insurance technology and regulatory technology 10.

Tabby's big number and what's behind it

Tabby's round was led by existing investor Blue Pool Capital, the Hong Kong firm backed by Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, with participation from HSG, Wellington Management and Arbor Ventures 9111213. The company says it has been profitable since 2023, processes more than $18 billion in annualized transaction volume, serves 25 million registered users and works with 70,000 businesses including Amazon and Shein 9111213. Reuters-sourced reporting quotes CEO Hosam Arab saying the new capital is meant chiefly to deepen Tabby's position in Saudi Arabia and the UAE rather than fund an international expansion 11.

The money follows, rather than precedes, a run of regulatory approvals. Tabby holds Saudi Central Bank consumer and SME finance licenses, bought the SAMA-licensed digital wallet Tweeq for accounts, cards and transfers, and secured a Stored Value Facilities license from the UAE Central Bank to launch Tabby Cash, a fee-free debit alternative with cashback 911121314. The round also includes a liquidity mechanism for staff; Tabby says share tenders running since 2023 have let employees cash out more than $100 million in stock 9111213.

Not every outlet reads the round the same way. The Industry Spread offers a pointedly skeptical take, noting that $233 million amounts to only about 3.6% of the post-money valuation, and argues this makes the round more of a price-setting and employee-liquidity event than a war chest for building a lending balance sheet 15. That outlet also points to Tabby's rival Tamara, which recently secured up to $2.4 billion in asset-backed debt financing from Goldman Sachs, Citi and Apollo, as evidence that debt facilities — not venture equity — are what will actually fund large-scale consumer lending in the Gulf 15. It further cautions that Tabby's user, volume and profitability figures are company-supplied and unaudited, since Tabby is not a listed issuer 15.

Grab's two-stage bet on Atome

Grab's acquisition of Atome Financial, the BNPL and consumer-lending business formerly known as Neuroncredit, was structured in two phases. The first buys 60% for $1.49 billion in cash, including $260 million of primary growth capital going into Atome itself rather than to existing shareholders, with closing expected by the third quarter of 2027 pending regulatory approval 1617181920. The second phase, roughly two years after closing, will bring Grab to full ownership at a price set by a formula weighted 75% toward 13 times annualized adjusted EBITDA and 25% toward 2.5 times annualized revenue, with the resulting valuation floored at $2 billion and capped at $4.5 billion 16171920.

Atome operates BNPL, cash loans, cards and lending products across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, reporting about 25 million cumulative transacted users and a gross loan portfolio near $1 billion 16181920. Grab plans to fund the first purchase entirely from existing cash, keep Atome's management team led by CEO Jefferson Chen in place, and fold the business into its financial-services segment 161718.

Grab used the announcement to raise its own medium-term targets, projecting its financial-services unit could generate $500 million in adjusted EBITDA and a loan book above $6 billion by 2028, alongside a company-wide goal of $1.7 billion in adjusted EBITDA and more than 30% annual revenue growth through 2028 161920. One outlet adds that Grab's stock fell 3.64% on Nasdaq following the announcement, and that CFO Peter Oey told CNBC the staged structure was designed to limit upfront capital risk while roughly $900 million in share buybacks continues over the next year 19.

Where the reporting agrees

Across the Tabby coverage, outlets consistently cite the same core numbers: $233 million raised, a $6.5 billion valuation, Blue Pool Capital as lead investor, and the same list of participating funds 9111213. They agree on the licensing history — the Saudi finance licenses, the Tweeq acquisition, and the UAE Stored Value Facilities license — and on the employee liquidity mechanism 911121314. On the Grab side, there is equally strong agreement on the deal architecture: 60% now for $1.49 billion, 100% ownership targeted about two years after closing, the EBITDA-and-revenue pricing formula for phase two, and the five-market footprint of Atome's lending business 1617181920. Multiple outlets also converge on the strategic rationale that both companies are chasing licensed distribution and lending relationships rather than simple payments volume, a framing echoed in the wider weekly wrap-ups of fintech funding 910.

Where it doesn't

The clearest divergence is interpretive rather than factual. Most coverage of Tabby's round treats it as straightforward growth capital enabling expansion into credit and money management 91213. The Industry Spread breaks from that framing, arguing the small primary check relative to valuation signals that equity is doing reputational and liquidity work while debt facilities will carry the real lending expansion — a reading no other outlet in this set makes explicitly 15. That same outlet is also alone in flagging that Tabby's operating metrics are unaudited company disclosures rather than verified fact, a caveat other write-ups pass along without qualification 15.

On timing, there's a minor inconsistency worth noting: Tabby's own UAE wallet-license announcement is dated to mid-April 2026 14, while other coverage discusses that license as part of the September funding announcement's backstory without pinning down the original approval date 911. It's a small wrinkle but illustrates how licensing developments accumulated over many months get compressed into a single week's funding news.

On Grab, the sourcing diverges on emphasis more than fact. TechNode and FinTech Futures present the deal primarily as a structural and financial story — deal size, phasing, valuation formula 1617. The Digital Banker and Streamlinefeed spend more space on strategic rationale and risk, citing Reuters' framing that the deal shortens Grab's path into the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, and Streamlinefeed alone reports the Nasdaq share-price drop and CFO commentary about de-risking capital allocation 1920. IBS Intelligence is the only outlet in this set to place the Atome deal in the context of Grab's other recent fintech move, its planned acquisition of US investment platform Stash Financial 18.

The reading the evidence supports

Taken together, the reporting supports a consolidation story more than a simple funding story. Tabby's valuation jump and Grab's acquisition price both reflect bets on regulated, multi-product financial platforms rather than the narrower economics of installment payments. The skeptical read on Tabby's capital structure is persuasive: a $233 million check against a $6.5 billion valuation is thin relative to what underwriting consumer credit at scale actually requires, and the presence of a rival's multibillion-dollar debt facility in the same market makes it likely that Tabby's next major financing will be a lending facility, not another equity round. Grab's staged, performance-linked structure for Atome similarly signals that even a well-capitalized acquirer wants to defer full financial commitment until the lending book proves itself across five regulatory regimes. The throughline for the week is that fintech growth is increasingly gated by licenses, funding costs and credit performance — not just product or user growth — and both marquee deals were built to manage that reality rather than ignore it.