Egyptian digital payments provider Paymob has closed its Series A funding round at US$18.5 million, funds it will use to expand its product and scale regionally.
Founded in 2015 by Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj and Mostafa Menessy, Paymob is an infrastructure technology enabler providing payment solutions to empower digital financial service providers through mobile wallet technology.
The startup’s mobile wallet infrastructure processes more than 85 per cent of the market share of the transaction’s throughput in the Egyptian market, and serves merchants in five other markets, including Kenya, Pakistan and Palestine.
Paymob raised a US$3.5 million in Series A funding in July of last year, and has now added another US$15 million of new capital from existing investors in a second tranche. The capital raise was led by Global Ventures, the UAE-based venture capital firm, and also included A15, a leading tech investment fund, and FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank.
Paymob will use proceeds to continue expanding its merchant network, meet increasing demand, enhance its suite of products further, and fuel its regional expansion efforts.
In payment acceptance, Paymob’s monthly revenue grew over 5x in 2020 and its technology is used across economic sectors by over 35,000 local Egyptian and global merchants, such as Swvl, ElGouna, Tradeline, LG, Samsonite, Aeropostale, Befit, Breadfast, Gourmet, and the American University of Cairo. Paymob’s annual total payment volume processed is now over US$5 billion.
“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,” Shawky said.
Global Ventures’ general partner Basil Moftah said his firm was delighted to lead the round.
“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 continue supporting their expansion,” he said.
