Tech in Africa
Cairo-based financial services startup Paymob raised $3.5 million from the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank FMO and Global Ventures. This was accompanied by a follow-on investment by A15.
The founding members of Paymob are Alain El-Hajj, Islam Shawky, and Mostafa El Menessy. Paymob offers PaaS (Payment As a Service) providing both local and global merchants with Tradeline, SWVL, Metro Market, and ElGouna serving customers monthly with online and in-store payment products.
Besides Egypt, the fintech company operates in five other markets, Kenya, Palestine, and Pakistan. The company is currently the dominant player in that financial segment across Egypt, commanding 85 percent of market transactions.
In a statement, Islam Shawky, the co-founder and CEO at Paymob states how “These unprecedented times has proven the need for a robust digital payments infrastructure to serve the rising demand from all business types and sizes during the pandemic which resulted in a drastic increase of 450 percent in merchant onboarding rate since the beginning of Covid-19.”
Paymob will use the funds to serve SMEs, expanding its merchant network while and product offings by establishing a foothold in Africa and other GCC countries.
Basil Moftah, a General Partner at Global Ventures pointed out how “Paymob and Global Ventures share similar DNA.”
