Arab News | Saudi startups reach final of London Business School competition

DUBAI: Two Saudi startups are among 10 finalists competing at the London Business School MENA Startup Competition, highlighting the range of solutions emerging from the Kingdom.

Health tech company SDM and fintech startup NSBH are competing for a share of $45,000 in funding, with the contest’s final being held on Oct. 14 in Dubai.

SDM is developing AI-powered tools for the early detection of chronic diseases, after witnessing growing challenges diabetic patients face in specialized eye care, particularly in rural and underserved communities.

Selwa Al-Hazzaa, founder and chairman of SDM, told Arab News her experience as an ophthalmologist in the field allowed her to understand the issues within the diagnosis process.

“One of the biggest gaps in Saudi Arabia’s healthcare system is not the lack of medical expertise, but the difficulty of delivering it to every patient at the right time and in the right place,” she said.

With SAARIA, SDM’s newest software, patients can receive a diagnostic report within one minute.

A process that would usually involve time, travel and other factors will be easier and simpler for patients and those seeking medical attention.

“The new software analyzes one retinal image per eye, captured on-site without pupil dilation. Then images are securely processed in a Saudi-hosted cloud, generating a bilingual Arabic-English PDF report within one minute. Using international grading standards, SAARIA delivers diagnostic results with greater than 90 percent sensitivity, without requiring a physician to be physically present at the examination site,” Al-Hazzaa said.

Beyond diabetic eye disease, SDM is developing AI applications designed to identify early risk indicators associated with conditions including hypertension, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, with the aim of supporting earlier intervention.

“We are also developing SAMIA, Saudi Automated Mammogram Image Analysis, for breast cancer detection, aiming to support earlier diagnosis and improve outcomes,” she added.

Winning the LBS competition would position SDM as a Saudi health tech innovator on the global stage, demonstrating that solutions developed in the Kingdom can address healthcare challenges worldwide, Al-Hazzaa said.

Cash-flow solution

Saudi fintech startup NSBH is seeking to ease cash-flow pressures on small businesses through a trade credit model that allows suppliers to receive payment upfront while buyers pay for goods later.

The company purchases goods from suppliers and resells them to business customers on deferred payment terms, managing the process from credit assessment to collection, CEO Rakan Fadhel and Chief Operating Officer Suhayb Al-Suwadi told Arab News.

“The idea came from experiencing the problem firsthand. During my time at Qawafel, a Saudi B2B marketplace, I saw transactions stall because the buyer needed time to pay while the supplier needed cash immediately. Demand existed, but the payment terms prevented the sale,” said Fadhel.

The duo argued that the fundamental problem is a mismatch between when businesses must pay their suppliers and when they receive cash from their own sales.

NSBH is developing a system that maps relationships between businesses, suppliers, purchases, invoices and payments to build a more complete picture of how companies trade.

The founders said the approach is intended to help assess credit risk by looking beyond financial statements and individual credit applications to the wider network of commercial transactions.

“Financial statements and individual credit applications provide only part of the picture. They can miss the relationships between a business’s purchases, suppliers, sales and repayment behavior. Our Trade Credit OS is designed to bring that connected view into the financing decision,” added Fadhel.

The CEO said winning the London Business School MENA Startup Competition would bring recognition to the brand’s ambition, building a Saudi-born Trade Credit OS that can support B2B commerce across markets.