Tech in Africa
Egypt’s Raseedi has raised an $850,000 pre-Series A round from Samurai Incubate and an EU-based investor alongside participation from existing investors 500 Global, EFG-EV, and Falak Startups. Founded in 2018 by Ahmed Atalla and Samuel Samy, Raseedi receives over 10 million monthly visits and calls from its dialer app.
Raseedi the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) app is looking to deploy a unique approach in onboarding the millions of underbanked in Egypt to the fintech boom. The app offers customers cheaper calls and data-saving tips. On average Raseedi receives 120 visits-per-use monthly for normal users and 1,000 visits per user per month for top users hence introducing customers to payments and hassle-free advance credit poses minimal challenges. Through organic App communication and upselling, the payment volumes increased 5 times in a month while 5,000 advance credit balances were issued in a few months.
Three years since the app launched Ahmed Atalla the CEO of Raseedi notes that since its inception they have focussed on the masses offering a better channel to communicate cheaply. He further pointed out that users can now call at cheaper rates, pay their telecom/utility bills while taking advantage of advanced telecom credit, pay peers/contacts while borrowing from peers or receive guarantees from community members to receive cash loans.
Samuel Samy, the company COO and head of product revealed that they operate as a super lean tech startup where they spend on “people and tech never on assets or operations.” Everything takes place on the app from communication to payments to receiving instant advance credit. The idea is to scale its app traction from the current 1 million active users to 100 million monthly visits.
Source: WAYA
