Egypt fintech secures $18.5-million in series funding round 

Cairo-based fintech startup Paymob has secured $15-million in a Series A funding round led by Global Ventures, the UAE-based venture capital firm with participation from A15, a leading tech investment fund, and FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank.

This funding round follows on from an investment secured in July 2020 amounting to $3.5-million, bringing the total capital raised to date to $18.5-million.

Paymob has secured $18.5-million

According to a statement released by Paymob, the funding will be used to continue expanding its merchant network, meet the increasing demand for its services, enhance its suite of products further and drive its regional expansion. 

Basil Moftah, general partner at Global Ventures attributes their investment to the innovative product offering that Paymob provides to Egyptians. 

“We are delighted to lead this momentous FinTech fundraise in the region. Paymob has a perfect combination of high-quality technology, a product customers increasingly cannot do without, and an outstanding management team. Their market opportunity is also huge; Egypt’s transformation to a cashless society is being enabled by the unique products Paymob has built. We look forward to continuing supporting their expansion.”

Paymob claims that this is the largest ever Series A fundraise by an Egyptian company and one of the largest fintech equity rounds in North Africa. 

Paymob

Founded in 2015 by entrepreneurs, Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj, and Mostafa Menessy, Paymob aims to empower underserved SMEs with increased access to digital payment products which form part of the Central Bank of Egypt’s efforts and initiatives towards increasing financial inclusion.

Paymob has reported that it plans to expand into the Saudi Arabia and other markets this year. 

The fintech’s mobile wallets reportedly process over 85% market share of transactions throughput in the Egyptian market. In addition, the fintech claims to serve merchants in five different markets including Kenya, Pakistan, and Palestine. 

With an ethos rooted in contributing to the financial inclusion movement, Paymob’s aims are rooted in creating economic growth through empowering merchants with their payment facilitation services.

Islam Shawky, co-founder and CEO of Paymob explains that the most recent investment funding secured will assist the fintech in achieving its goal of financial inclusion in Egypt.

“We couldn’t be more excited for Paymob’s next phase of growth; the market opportunity in the region is unprecedented. The large digital payments gap still exists and we are delighted to be working with progressive-thinking regulators to address this. This latest capital raise will accelerate our progress to reducing the digital payments bottleneck. All our existing investors have increased their holdings, and we thank them both for their support and the confidence they have in our business model and track record of execution.”

Read more: Ugandan insurtech startup secures $1.2-million
Read more: Local fintech Payflex secures funding 

Featured image: Paymob team, Facebook