Abu Dhabi-based venture capital fund manager Phoenix Venture Partners Limited has led a US$3.5 million Pre-Series A financing round in Sav, a UAE fintech platform that combines savings, investments, gold, payments, and commerce into a single AI-driven ecosystem.

Co-investors in the round were drawn from the investor base of Phoenix Venture Partners Innovation Fund CEIC Limited. The fresh capital adds to roughly US$2.5 million Sav had already raised in previous funding rounds.

What Sav does and who is behind it

Sav was founded by Purvi Munot and Mithil Ajmera as an autonomous consumer fintech platform built on artificial intelligence and open finance infrastructure. Its proprietary AI system, called SavCore, underpins the platform's approach to managing money across savings, investing, gold, payments, and commerce in one place. Sav operates in the UAE under a DFSA Category 4 license.

Where the money is going

The US$3.5 million round will primarily fund Sav's go-to-market expansion into Saudi Arabia, along with continued product development, investment in its AI infrastructure, and user acquisition efforts across the wider GCC. Saudi Arabia has been identified as a key strategic growth market as Sav scales beyond the UAE.

Why Phoenix Venture Partners is backing Sav

Steve Khayat, Founder and CEO of Phoenix Venture Partners, said the firm was drawn to Sav's founders and its positioning in the region's fintech landscape. "Purvi and Mithil are exactly the type of founders we seek to back: ambitious, visionary, and relentlessly execution-focused," he said.

Khayat framed the investment as a bet on where GCC fintech is heading next. "The next chapter of GCC fintech won't be defined by payments. It will be defined by what gets built on top of payment rails: lending, insurance, wealth management, and embedded finance," he said. "Infrastructure creates platforms. Platforms create ecosystems. We believe Sav is exceptionally positioned to capitalize on this shift through its AI-first approach to financial wellness, saving, and wealth creation."

Faris Al-Obaid, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Phoenix Venture Partners, pointed to a shift beyond buy-now-pay-later models. "While BNPL changed how consumers access spending, we believe the next major shift will be access to AI-led money management," he said. "Sav is helping consumers build wealth rather than simply finance consumption. That's a powerful long-term trend and one we believe remains significantly underappreciated."

The founders' view

Sav Co-founder and CEO Purvi Munot described the gap in the financial system that the platform is designed to address, particularly for people who move across borders. "A generation is building wealth for the first time, across more borders than any before it, and the financial system was never designed for them," she said. "Their accounts sit in different countries, their credit history resets every time they move, and no institution ever sees the whole picture. We are building the platform that does: one that understands a person's entire financial life and acts on it, so their money works as hard and moves as freely as they do."