The Egyptian US-based FinTech and payment management solutions provider MoneyHash has raised $3M in Pre-SEED to launch its services across The Middle East & Africa.
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MoneyHash, an Egyptian FinTech startup based in the US building the Middle East and Africa’s first Super-API for payment orchestration and revenue operations, has successfully raised $3M in its latest fundraise. The Pre-SEED round has an impressive ensemble of investors led by UAE’s venture capital firm COTU Ventures with the participation of MENA fintech fund VentureSouq and European fund VentureFriends. Other participating funds include Kepple Africa Ventures, Ventures Platform, The Continent Venture Partners, Nuwa Capital, First Check Ventures, Fox Ventures, and Loftyinc Capital Management along with a consortium of strategic regional and global angel investors.
With an ambitious plan to become the AWS of payments in the Middle East & Africa, MoneyHash empowers businesses in emerging markets to streamline their payment stack and optimize pay-in/pay-out operations without breaking the bank. The company has been in beta since early 2021, with 17 companies using their sandbox environment to test integration and tools. The team has conducted extensive user research with over 150 companies, engaged multiple providers across the region, and built a comprehensive suite of tools.
As we just released our 2022 FinTech Venture Investment Report, it is safe to point out the exceptional year for VC funding in FinTech across the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, and Turkey. VC funding in the sector across EVMs exceeded $2Bn in 2021, indicating new dawn for the sector marked by an almost 600% YoY growth in VC funding over the past year. This was driven in part by the leading role FinTech Startups in Sub-Saharan Africa played in the past year with the likes of Flutterwave, Wave Mobile Money, and JUMO closing 3 of the 5 FinTech MegaRounds in 2021. Nonetheless, FinTech ranked amongst the top 3 industries in number of transactions as well, observing more than 50% YoY growth in registered deals across EVMs in 2021. The sector in MENA gained more momentum and impressive maturity in 2021 as recorded in our State of Startup Funding- 2022 Emerging Venture Markets Free Report. This was reflected in FinTech rounds closed in UAE including the likes of payments provider Tabby and Crypto-powered FinTech BitOasis, FinTech rounds in Bahrain by payment gateway provider Tarabut Gateway and Crypto Exchange platform CoinMENA, and across MENA with major rounds closed by Rasan Information Technology (KSA), Expensya (Tunis), and Dopay (Egypt). While the industry reigned atop the most active industries in MENA 2021 observing a 44% YoY growth in number of transactions, it made out second in terms of VC investment after Food & Beverage which made a stellar come back this year.
Access our suite of Full Year 2021 Reports covering MENA, Africa, Pakistan & Turkey. Browse our latest and pick your data focus
Early-stage companies often start with one or two providers for payment processing and payout. But as they grow, they have to tack on provider after provider to meet their growing needs. “Each expansion can take an in-house tech team 3-10 weeks, not to mention the ongoing demands of reporting reconciliation, operational inefficiencies, and technical vulnerabilities,” says Mustafa Eid, co-founder and CTO at MoneyHash. “And that’s a challenge we are passionate to solve.” Nader Abdelrazik, co-founder and CEO added, “When it comes to emerging markets, and particularly the Middle East & Africa, these challenges are magnified. The region is highly fragmented due to the lack of economic integration between countries in MEA, which means that the countries’ payment methods, currencies, and regulations operate in isolation. By building a custom infrastructure with a single integration and a central dashboard, we provide a platform for companies to grow and address this complexity without depleting their resources.”
With one connection point, MoneyHash users can connect with services across the revenue stack, from pay-in/pay-out providers across MEA to value-added service providers such as KYC, fraud detection, and loyalty programs. In addition to the Super-API, MoneyHash offers customizable services for a variety of businesses: a unified checkout experience for e-commerce, centralized reporting for business intelligence, and micro-services such as transaction routing, subscription management, and invoicing. With MoneyHash, companies can quickly and easily build a payment stack that fits their unique needs. “When I first heard of MoneyHash, I was very excited by the idea. I saw huge potential in having an aggregator for all different payment gateways, which would both reduce engineering time and increase visibility on transactions. Sakneen saw these benefits firsthand when we enrolled in the MoneyHash private beta, and I believe that their tools will continue to help us scale and expand in the future. I am excited for what the future holds, both as a customer and as an angel investor.” says Sakneen CTO, Hussein Elkheshen.
While massive global companies like Airbnb and Uber create dedicated teams to design and manage payment systems, and companies like Spreedly and Zooz sprung up to serve the US and Europe, emerging markets have remained underserved. Joshua Kaplan, partner at Wilson Sonsini and the former COO of Checkout.com, and a member of MoneyHash’s advisory board explains, “The financial technology sector, and digital payments, in particular, is a foundational piece of the infrastructure on which the digital economy in the region is being built. MoneyHash is building an important framework to accelerate the development and growth potential of SMBs and enterprises in the region by automating their access to digital payment methods and adjacent services.”
This round is an extension to an undisclosed six-figure raise announced in 2021, MoneyHash will use the funds to grow its team and extend the capabilities of the Super-API to serve businesses across MEA with a simple, comprehensive payment solution.
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