The round includes $15 million in fresh capital and $3.5 million that came as its first tranche in July 2020
Cairo-based FinTech Paymob has announced a $18.5M Series A round, led by Global Ventures, with participation from A15 and FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank.
According to a statement, this is considered the largest-ever Series A fund raised by an Egyptian company and one of the largest FinTech equity rounds in North Africa.
The round includes $15 million in fresh capital and $3.5 million that came as its first tranche in July 2020.
Paymob empowers underserved SMEs with improved and more accessible digital payments offerings as part of the Central Bank of Egypt’s efforts and initiatives towards nationwide digital financial inclusion.
“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,” said Paymob’s CEO and co-founder, Islam Shawky.
The startup provides different products and APIs, enabling online and offline businesses to accept and send payments.
These merchants and businesses can easily integrate Paymob’s payment APIs in their websites or mobile apps to accept payments from their customers using different payment methods including cards, mobile wallets, and cash on delivery.
Shawky added that “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”.
Paymob’s mobile wallets infrastructure processes over 85 percent market share of transactions throughput in the Egyptian market and serves merchants across five different markets including Kenya, Pakistan, and Palestine, the company stated.
Paymob is the largest payment facilitator in Egypt and is the only Egyptian FinTech to expand beyond its local market, they added.
In its statement, Paymob said that the revenue for its payment acceptance business grew over 5x in 2020, with its technology now being used by over 35,000 local and global merchants including Swvl, LG, Samsonite, and the American University in Cairo. The startup claims to have processed payments worth over $5 billion to date.
Basil Moftah, General Partner of Global Ventures, said, “We are delighted to lead this momentous fintech fundraise in the region. Paymob has a perfect combination of a high-quality technology, a product [that] 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.”
