UAE-Based Kudwa Raises $1.1M for the Next Layer of Finance AI

Finance teams at mid-market companies spend five to ten days every month pulling data from eight or more sources before any real analysis can begin. Kudwa is building the layer that automates that work.

Kudwa, a UAE- and U.S.-based financial planning software startup, closed a $1.1 million seed round in late 2025, the company disclosed on Monday. Capital is earmarked for product development, expanded system integrations, and sales growth across multiple geographies. The round closed ahead of its original schedule. Investors include UK-based 1818 Venture Capital, F6 Ventures, U.S.-based Sparked VC, IM Fndg, and IVP.

Founded in 2023 by Karl Nasr and Sam Arif, Kudwa builds software that connects to ERP, accounting, and operational systems and automates the financial reporting, forecasting, and scenario analysis that finance teams typically perform manually in spreadsheets. The company targets businesses with 50 to 500 employees and annual revenue up to $80 million.

Nasr describes the product as occupying the “post-accounting” layer, the work that comes after bookkeeping: entity consolidation, performance reporting, and forward-looking analysis. A mid-market finance team typically pulls data from eight sources each month and spends five to ten days on a single reporting cycle. Kudwa’s platform is designed to compress that process.

The company did not start with this product. Kudwa originally launched as Numu Cards, an expense management tool, before pivoting after the founders identified stronger demand in financial planning and analysis. The platform currently serves clients in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and India, with average sales cycles of three to six weeks.

On data integrity, Nasr has said hallucinations are non-negotiable: the platform runs a validation layer between data ingestion and output, cross-referencing figures against source systems before surfacing them to users. Kudwa holds SOC 2 compliance and has undergone audits by QuickBooks Intuit and Xero. Independent audit results have not been published.

Since closing the round, the company has added AI-driven forecasting, automated reporting, multi-entity consolidation, and additional third-party integrations. Kudwa did not disclose customer numbers or revenue. A timeline for a subsequent fundraise was not provided.

The raise comes as a crowded field of AI-assisted finance tools competes for mid-market customers across the GCC and U.S. markets. Larger incumbents including Workday and Oracle have accelerated AI feature rollouts across their own FP&A products in recent quarters, increasing pressure on early-stage entrants.

This article is based on publicly available reporting. NervNow has not independently verified the claims and figures cited, including investor identities.

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