EGYPT – Paymob, an Egyptian fintech startup that allows businesses to accept digital payments both virtually and in-store, has closed US$50 million in Series B funding for fuel expansion.
The round was led by US-based emerging markets investment company Kora Management, PayPal Ventures, and London-based Clay Point.
The round also attracted new investors including Helios Digital Ventures, British International Investment (formerly the CDC Group), and Nclude, the venture fund launched by Global Ventures and three Egyptian banks.
The round puts Paymob’s total contribution at over US$68.5 million, making it one of the biggest in Egypt and MENA at this phase.
Founded in 2015 by Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj, and Mostafa Menessy, the startup builds an omnichannel payment infrastructure to enable businesses to accept digital payments both online and in-store in addition to giving them better access to financial services.
The platform’s gateway has the largest number of payment methods in the Egyptian market in addition to conventional bank cards.
It offers new payment methods such as mobile wallets, QR payments, bank cards’ installments, Buy-Now Pay-Later, and consumer finance payment options to support merchants in increasing their volume of transactions and growing revenues.
Recently, the startup partnered with Mastercard to introduce Tap-on-Phone in Egypt – the first of its kind in the country and which will start to replace traditional point of sale devices.
Paymob plans to launch cards for its merchants to enable B2B transactions and build tools for merchants to better manage and grow their business.
This unique proposition has enabled the platform to attract numerous international players such as Vodafone, LG, Virgin, Chalhoub Group, and Decathlon that have turned to Paymob’s digital payment products.
The new players join fast-growing companies such as Swvl, Breadfast, and Homzmart that are relying on Paymob to power their payment infrastructure to enhance customer experience and increase conversion at checkout.
The round comes on the back of robust growth in 2021, with the number of merchants and monthly volumes growing by 4x year-on-year as of December 2021.
Paymob onboarded over 100,00 merchants in less than two and half years as part of its plan to reach 1 million SMEs across the region.
The startup has recently announced its market entry in Pakistan, which has a population of over 220 million, and over 4 million SMEs across the country.
It plans to onboard over 100,000 merchants within the first 24 months of launching its operations. This expansion should be followed by additional markets in the GCC and North Africa.
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