Egyptian fintech startup Money Fellows recently secured $31 million in a series B funding round, with the aim to accelerate growth and geographical expansion plans.

The funding will be directed towards boosting the app’s growth through diversifying its portfolio of services and growing its product offerings across the B2C and B2B segments, as well as expanding its footprint across Africa and Asia.

Founded in 2017, Money Fellows is a mobile-based platform that that digitizes money circles or Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) that are widely known as “Gameya” in Egypt and other Arab countries. Through the platform, users are able to access affordable credit and save to achieve their financial goals.

The ROSCAs system is when a group of people come together and agree to contribute money for a specific period of time, with one or two receiving a payout at a time.

Money Fellows - which calls itself a collaborative group lending and savings platform - believes that the market is largely untapped with 2.4 billion people globally using money circles through traditional channels.

The round was led by CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), and Arzan Venture Capital. Invenfin and National Investment Company (NIC) as well as existing investors such as Partech, Sawari Ventures, 4DX, and P1Ventures also took part in the round.

Money Fellows has raised $37 million in total funding since its inception.

According to TechCrunch, Money Fellows has over 4.5. million registered users on its platform, with the average payout per user at around EGP 23k. The website pointed out that only around 7% of those users were monthly active users.