Osama Al Raee, CEO and co-founder of Lendo

Osama Al Raee, CEO and co-founder, Lendo: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. We spoke to CEO and co-founder of Lendo, Osama Al Raee — fresh off a USD 690 mn facility with JP Morgan back in February. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Osama Al Raee. I come from a consulting background — and a few other places — with north of seven years of experience in management consulting. After graduating Duke University, I worked at Strategy& (back when it was Booz & Company) and then at McKinsey, where my main focus was on strategy projects across telecom, tech, and media. I also had a stint at Misk Foundation as executive manager of entrepreneurship and innovation. My focus there was on building the startup ecosystem in the country — driving innovation from both a public policy angle and through programs, training, education, and talent development.

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Consulting taught me a lot, but left a few scars. Long hours, heavy travel, high pressure — it was great for learning, but tough on everything else. I missed weddings, funerals, and family time. It left me with this feeling that if I’m not doing something, I’m wasting time. That’s when I started working on startups on the side. I needed something to fill the time after 5pm.

I helped build up the sandbox, and now I’m playing in it. When I first joined Misk in 2017, I told my manager at the time that I hope to do such a good job that, one day, the role itself wouldn’t need to exist. The goal was to help ignite the startup ecosystem so that it would continue growing on its own. By 2019, I felt we were approaching that moment, and that is when I realized that it might be time to jump to the other side and become a founder myself. In a way, it was a test of the very system I’d helped build.

This is where Lendo was born. Lendo is a Sharia-compliant debt crowdfunding platform focused on SME financing. We connect SMEs that need liquidity — often because they’re waiting on large receivables — with individual and institutional investors who can fund those invoices. We started with a crowdfunding model, where any Saudi citizen or resident could invest, and over time expanded to include family offices, global banks, and sometimes our own balance sheet.

The idea for Lendo came from real pain on both sides of the equation. Mohammed Jaber, my co-founder and our COO, had worked at a company building apps for governments and big corporates. The business was financially sound, but they sometimes couldn’t make payroll because of delayed payments. They had mns in receivables, but were always chasing liquidity — and it got so bad that the shareholders eventually shut down the company.

I saw the same issue from the buyer’s side when I was at Misk. As we scaled from 10 people to more than 380, the invoice payment process went from five days to some four months as the required approvals and regulatory bottlenecks multiplied. We both saw the same problem from different angles — and decided to solve it.

The JP Morgan facility wasn’t part of the original plan, but it changed everything. We were looking for new capital sources and talked to several UK funds — and from there, started conversations with banks. JP Morgan understood fintech. What they didn’t understand, at first, was Saudi Arabia — the regulation, the market. So it took time. The original plan was USD 150 mn. Eventually, they offered USD 690 mn. It wasn’t part of the original vision, but it accelerated everything.

The SME financing gap in Saudi was — and still is — massive. In 2018, SME lending made up just 4% of total financing in the Kingdom, or about SAR 100 bn. Vision 2030 set a target of 20% — translating to SAR 600-700 bn. Mohamed and I saw a clear opportunity there. We weren’t just building a fintech platform — we were trying to help solve a national-scale liquidity challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises.

At Lendo, I focus on the demand side, risk and governance. Lendo is a marketplace, so we have the typical supply and demand structure — represented in those that are willing to lend and in SMEs in need of financing. My role sits on the governance, risk and compliance side, with my day split across those areas — replying to emails, external meetings as well as board and regulatory management. That’s where I spend a lot of my time.

I typically arrive at the office around 10-10:30 am — mainly to sidestep Riyadh’s infamous morning traffic. My workday extends until about 8-8:30 pm, with the initial hours dedicated to clearing emails and outlining key tasks for the day. From noon onward, my schedule is filled with meetings — both internal discussions with teams and external engagements with clients. As the evening approaches and the office quiets down, I seize the opportunity to address any pending tasks before heading home.

I schedule my fun — or it doesn’t happen. After long days, I usually decompress with some TV or video games. Tuesdays are for one of my favorite weekly rituals: a regular shisha session with a group of fellow founders, which also couples as founder therapy. No business talk, just honest conversations and smoke.

One non-negotiable: dinner with the family. No matter what my wife or I have planned in the evening, we always make sure to have dinner together first. On Fridays, all the siblings gather at my parents’ house after Juma’a prayers and have lunch together, then hang out for a few hours. In the evening, it’s board games with my college friends. We’ve been doing it every Friday for the past 15 years. Zero startup talk — full mental reset.

One thing I’ve learned over time is when to aim for perfection, and when “good enough” is just fine. I used to be hyper-detailed — it came with the strategy consulting mindset. But in a startup, you can’t treat everything like a McKinsey deck. My co-founder is more pragmatic, and I’ve picked that up from him over the years.

When I do find downtime, I read. I’ve always enjoyed understanding how economies work — both at the macro and micro levels — and I follow policy developments closely, especially in Saudi. I used to read more science fiction, but these days I spend more time thinking about how AI will shape different sectors in five or ten years. Sometimes I’ll pick a random industry and imagine what it looks like in a fully AI-powered world. It’s a good mental exercise — and honestly, more fun than it sounds.

If I had to give one piece of advice to a first-time founder, it would be to hire the right people — and do it early. Everyone says it, but you don’t fully understand the impact until you see what exceptional talent can do for your business. The right people bring exponential returns.