In August 2020, Egyptian fintech Paymob announced that it raised $3.5 million to improve its capacity and acquire more merchants to use its payments services. That mission has now received additional funding, bringing the startup to a formal Series A close of $18.5 million.
The round was led by Global Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests mostly in Middle East and North African startups but also has Nigerian healthtech Helium Health in its portfolio. FMO, which is the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, and A15 (an Eyptian investment fund) also participated in the deal.
The raise is possibly the largest-ever Series A by a fintech in Egypt. Islam Shawky, the co-founder and CEO of Paymob, said the new funding is an indication of the startup’s “next phase of growth,” noting that the opportunity for digital financial services in North Africa is promising.
“The large digital payments gap still exists and we are delighted to be working with progressive-thinking regulators to address this,” Shawky said, according to Menabytes.
“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,” he added.
Paymob says its digital wallet service for businesses currently owns 85% market share in Egypt as the country’s top payments facilitator. The startup reports good news from the effect of the 2020 pandemic, growing monthly revenue more than 5 times and total payment volume of more than $5 billion from over 35,000 local and international merchants, according to Techcrunch.
Outside Egypt where it also offers offline Point of Sale products, Paymob has locked down customers in Kenya, Pakistan and Palestine. It plans an entry into Saudi Arabia this year and other parts of the Middle East.