Egypt’s Paymob closes $18.5M Series A to expand payments services across MENA – Fundingnewsasia

Whereas Nigeria and Kenya have been on the forefront of African fintech innovation, actions in Egypt are starting to form up properly. Proper now, Egypt is house to a burgeoning fintech startup ecosystem, and at this time, certainly one of its largest gamers, Paymob introduced that it has accomplished an $18.5 million Sequence A spherical.

In July 2020, Paymob raised $3.5 million as its first tranche of Sequence A funding. An further $15 million was raised from the identical buyers led by Dubai-based VC agency International Ventures. Different buyers embody Egyptian funding fund A15 and Dutch improvement financial institution FMO.

The entire increase of $18.5 million is the biggest Sequence A spherical in Egypt but and one of many largest fairness rounds in North Africa.

“We are delighted to guide this momentous fintech fundraise within the area. Paymob has an ideal mixture of high-quality know-how, product prospects more and more can’t do with out, and an excellent administration workforce, “Basil Moftah, basic accomplice at International Ventures, mentioned of the funding. “Their market alternative can also be large; Egypt’s transformation to a cashless society is being enabled by the distinctive merchandise Paymob has constructed.” 

Paymob was based in 2015 by Alain El Hajj, Islam Shawky, and Mostafa El Menessy. The platform helps on-line and offline retailers to just accept funds from their prospects through a number of merchandise and options. It presents a cost gateway that retailers can plugin into their websites or cell software utilizing its APIs. For offline retailers, Paymob has a POS answer the place they will obtain in-store card funds.

The corporate additionally has a cost hyperlinks function the place retailers share hyperlinks with their prospects to obtain funds that are acquired utilizing cell wallets. And in keeping with the corporate, 85% of cell wallets transactions carried out in Egypt is processed by its infrastructure. It additionally claims to be the biggest cost facilitator within the nation.

Asides from Egypt, Paymob can also be current in Kenya, Pakistan, and Palestine. CEO Shawky says the corporate has plans to broaden into extra Sub-Saharan African international locations. Nevertheless, that may come after specializing in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to realize a big market share.

Regional growth (with an imminent entry into Saudi Arabia this 12 months) is certainly one of Paymob’s aims following this increase. Per an announcement launched by the corporate, it would additionally use the investments to broaden its service provider community, meet growing demand, and enhance product choices.

The pandemic introduced among the finest alternatives for fintechs all around the world to attain large progress. For Paymob, it claims to have grown its month-to-month income over 5x final 12 months. The corporate additionally recorded a complete cost quantity of greater than $5 billion from over 35,000 native and worldwide retailers like Swvl, LG, Breadfast, and Tradeline. 

This progress allowed the fintech firm to boost the second tranche of funding after closing simply $3.5 million initially. Shawky informed Fundingnewsasia that the deal materialized after the corporate’s buyers and administration witnessed an “unprecedented progress” pushed by the pandemic “along with the brand new initiatives launched by regulators, which inspired them to extend their funding to satisfy our growing demand. 

As earlier iterated, fintech is on the rise in Egypt with startups like Moneyfellows, NowPay, Raseedi, Flick offering lending, funds, wealth and private finance administration providers, and so on.

The Egyptian fintech ecosystem additionally received a serious increase when incumbent fintech Fawry grew to become a publicly-traded unicorn for the primary time. Since launching in 2007, Fawry has been the biggest on-line cost platform within the nation and presents quite a lot of providers starting from cell pockets to banking providers. Will Fawry’s longstanding presence pose a problem to Paymob’s quest to turn into a dominant fintech as nicely? Shawky doesn’t suppose so.

“Paymob’s main competitor is money. With solely a small share of the economic system working in digital varieties, we imagine the chance of really reworking money into digital is but to be unlocked,” he mentioned.

That mentioned, the increase follows the launch of two funds — Algebra Ventures and Sawari Ventures in what will be described as an thrilling week for startups and VCs within the nation.