Paymob, an Egyptian fintech startup that allows businesses to accept digital payments both virtually and in-store, currently secured $50 million in Series B funding.
The round was headed by PayPal Ventures, PayPal’s global corporate venture arm, Kora Egypt-based fintech startup Paymob secures $50 Million in Series B funding Capital in New York, and Clay Point in London.
Helios Digital Ventures, British International Investment (formerly the CDC Group), and Nclude, the venture fund launched by Global Ventures and three Egyptian banks, are among the new investors. A15, FMO, and Global Ventures, which invested in the company’s $18.5 million Series A last April, increased their stakes.
The round puts Paymob’s total contribution at over $68.5 million, making it one of the biggest in Egypt and MENA at this phase.
Paymob, founded in 2015 by Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj, and Mostafa Menessy, works with a wide range of businesses and merchants. Its omnichannel payment infrastructure, which the CEO claims are the largest in Egypt, allows them to accept payments via a variety of methods.
Bank cards, mobile wallets, QR payments, bank card installments, BNPL, and consumer finance payment options are among the various options. Paymob also has a POS solution for offline merchants to accept card payments in-store.
Paymob’s payment gateways, such as Swvl, LG, Breadfast, and Homzmart, were used by over 35,000 local and international merchants last year.
The number of businesses, which now includes Vodafone, LG, Virgin, Chalhoub Group, and Decathlon, has more than tripled to over 100,000. Paymob plans to reach a million SMEs in the next few years, according to Shawky.
Kora Management, a co-lead investor, was drawn by Paymob’s vast product suite. Paymob is innovating at magnitude in the offline merchant obtaining and online transaction gateway sector, according to Nitin Saigal, the company’s founder, as Egypt and the Middle East shift focus from a primarily cash-based to a digital-heavy mode of transacting.
Rolling out a new checkout platform and launching cards to allow B2B transactions are among its other strategies for merchants.
In 2020, Paymob disclosed a total payment amount of $5 billion; it’s unclear what that figure is right now.
However, according to other company metrics, monthly volumes increased 4x year over year as of December 2021. Paymob had completed over 120 million transactions as of 2020, according to its website.
Paymob’s advancement into Pakistan could accelerate its growth by the end of the year. According to a statement, the Egyptian fintech hopes to add 100,000 merchants from the South Asian country, which has over 4 million SMEs, in the next two years.
Techuild’s Take
SMEs make a significant contribution to the economy and work opportunities in any country, particularly in developing markets.
Payment platforms in Africa, such as Paymob, have had a significant impact on financial inclusion for SMEs in the region, initially filling essential market gaps and then advancing as their clients and the technology landscape continue to change.
Acquiring a point-of-sale machine and its associated hardware can be prohibitively expensive for micro and small businesses.
It will be difficult to scale because they will need to process high volumes over a long period of time to recoup that cost.
By downloading a Paymob-powered app, business owners can turn their NFC-enabled smartphones – personal or commercial – into a POS using contactless payments technology.
This digital platform is giving SMEs the opportunity to make digital payments simple, and it is improving and expanding to other regions.
Paymob asserts to serve merchants in other countries, such as Kenya and Palestine, but it has yet to open a branch in these countries.
Rather, the company is concentrating on a few GCC and North African markets, where this growth funding will provide the necessary force to launch.
Paymob will also increase its market share in Egypt and expand its product suite to include expense management software and working capital.
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