Ziina named winner of Dubai-it business award
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, announced that Ziina has won the Dubai-it Award for Companies in the Field of Business, recognizing its expansion from a peer-to-peer money transfer app into a financial platform serving individuals and businesses.
Omar Al Nuaimi
Mobile payments and business growth
The Dubai-built company's payment volume has exceeded $1.5 billion, according to the award announcement. It serves 500,000 users and more than 290,000 business owners across the UAE, including small and medium-sized enterprises and people running businesses from home.
Sheikh Hamdan, who is also the UAE's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence and chairman of Dubai's Executive Council, praised the young Arab entrepreneurs behind Ziina for simplifying phone-based payment acceptance for thousands of businesses. He said the company reached its payment-volume milestone in record time.
Siblings Faisal, Sarah and Talal Toukan built the platform from scratch in Dubai and named it after their mother. Its services allow customers to send, receive, save and spend money, while businesses can accept payments on their phones without separate payment devices.
Ziina introduced more than 13 products and features over four years. The announcement also cited a 163% increase in active businesses within a year and continued user growth since launch.
One product milestone was the April 2025 introduction of Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android, according to Ziina's Wikipedia profile. The feature lets merchants accept contactless payments directly on a smartphone.
Licensing and partnerships
According to its Wikipedia profile, Ziina obtained a Stored Value Facility license from the Central Bank of the UAE in 2024.
The profile also records a July 2025 partnership with the Dubai CommerCity free zone to provide SMEs with instant transfers, payment links, NFC Tap to Pay, multi-currency virtual IBANs and a co-branded bank card.
Ziina also partnered with Lean Technologies on open finance. Dubai Startups Daily, in its June 2026 coverage, described the partnership as enabling the UAE's first live customer-initiated open finance payment.
Funding history
Ziina was founded in Dubai in January 2020, according to its Wikipedia profile. Avenir Growth Capital led its $7.5 million seed round in June 2021, followed by a $22 million Series A led by Altos Ventures in September 2024.
Wikipedia and Dubai Startups Daily's June 2026 coverage put total disclosed funding at about $30.5 million across six rounds. Separately, Middle East Venture Partners disclosed in an annual letter reported in January 2026 that Ziina had raised a $7 million bridge round ahead of a Series B. The letter also said the company had surpassed $15 million in annual recurring revenue.
Recognition under the Dubai-it initiative
In congratulating the Toukan siblings and their team, Sheikh Hamdan linked the company's development to the award's purpose. "This is Dubai-it: building from the ground up, growing with ambition and creating an impact that extends beyond the business itself," he said.
Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi, chairman of the Executive Office of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, said Ziina illustrated how young Arabs could use Dubai's opportunities to develop technological capabilities and create economic value. He described the city as a place where they could build companies, gain capabilities and turn ideas into successful businesses, and said Ziina's financial solutions supported business growth and entrepreneurship.
Al Gergawi said the recognition was also intended to encourage more young people to start businesses. In his assessment, successful companies emerging from Dubai create opportunities and show that young people's ambitions can translate into achievements competitive on a global stage.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE's Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, launched the Dubai-it initiative to express the city's approach to development: hard work, achievement and turning ambitions into results in record time. It seeks to make that approach an enduring practice within institutions and companies, emphasizing speed, mastery and impact.
The annual Dubai-it Award was established under Sheikh Hamdan's directives. It recognizes individuals, projects, institutions and companies that turn ideas into tangible results, rewarding exceptional work completed quickly and to high standards.
