UAE-based fintech Wafr raises undisclosed pre-seed, launches sukuk blockchain WafrChain

UAE-based fintech Wafr has raised an undisclosed pre-seed funding round, with participation from angel investors.

The round includes Coen Jonker, co-founder of Tyme Group and a former Commonwealth Bank of Australia Group Executive, and Neal Cross, co-founder of PictureWealth and former chief innovation officer at DBS Bank.

Wafr was co-founded in 2026 by Mahmoud Bouchelif, its chief executive, and Anthony Murphy, its chief product officer. It is building a global Islamic finance platform that offers Shariah-compliant financial services to individuals, businesses and financial institutions.

Its first product is WafrChain, a private, permissioned blockchain that records instrument terms, including unit price, profit schedule and maturity, alongside the approval of the issuer’s own Shariah board before distribution. Sukuk tokenisation is now live on the platform.

The platform connects issuers with distributors and institutional buyers and uses smart contracts to route profit payments. Settlement can take place in fiat currency, through local real-time gross settlement systems and SWIFT, or in stablecoins.

A single sukuk issuance typically involves eight separate parties, including the issuer, the trustee, arrangers, the Shariah board, custodians, the paying agent, distributors and investors. Each keeps its own record of the same instrument, and every transfer, profit payment and corporate action is re-keyed and reconciled between them.

That adds cost, delay and the risk of error to each issuance, which can take many months and in some cases more than a year to bring to market. WafrChain is designed to connect the institutions involved in the sukuk lifecycle through a shared record, and each participant can see only its own activity.

According to the ICD-LSEG Islamic Finance Development Report 2026, global Islamic finance assets reached $6.5 trillion in 2025, up 9% year on year. Sukuk outstanding stood at $1.14 trillion, while annual issuance rose 14.5% to $291.4 billion.

Wafr plans to expand its institutional offering into fund tokenisation, tokenised deposits, trade finance and business-to-business settlement. Consumer services, including international accounts, cross-border remittances and payment cards, are planned subject to regulatory approvals.

Bouchelif said: “WafrChain is our starting point, giving institutions a foundation for bringing Shariah-compliant assets on-chain while we develop the services people need to manage their financial lives across borders.”