Paymob, an Egyptian market-leading omnichannel merchant financial services platform, recently announced it has raised US$50 million in Series B funding. The proceeds will be utilized to turbocharge the firm by expanding its product range, reinforcing its leadership in the Egyptian market, and mounting into new markets across the Middle East and Africa region.
Paymob added that the Series-B Funding round was powered by Kora Capital, PayPal Ventures, and Clay Point. The other latest participating investors comprised Helios Digital Ventures, British International Investment, and Nclude. All existing investors including A15, FMO, and Global Ventures also participated.
Paymob added that this funding round is the largest ever fintech, Series B in Egypt, and brings the total funding of Paymob to over US$68.5 million making it one of the most funded companies in the region and comes at a pivotal time of an unprecedented wave of digital transformation across the region.
Paymob claimed that it shapes an omnichannel payment infrastructure in Egypt to enable businesses to accept digital payments both online and in-store in addition to giving them better access to financial services.
It further claims to have the largest number of payment methods in the Egyptian market; in addition to conventional bank cards, Paymob added 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 firm also stated it has partnered with Mastercard unveiling a Tap-on-Phone in Egypt – which it claims to be the first of its kind in the nation and which will start to swap traditional point of sale devices. Paymob plans to unveil cards for its merchants to enable B2B transactions and build tools for merchants to better manage and grow their business.
Few of the clients who have liked this proposition include Vodafone, LG, Virgin, Chalhoub Group, and Decathlon in addition to fast-growing firms like Swvl, Breadfast, and Homzmart that are relying on Paymob to power their payment infrastructure to enhance customer experience and increase conversion at checkout.
Islam Shawky, Paymob’s Co-founder, and CEO stated: “We are thrilled to complete this significant fundraising with the support of such renowned international investors including, PayPal Ventures, the venture capital arm of a global pioneer in the digital payment space. It is a major endorsement of the strategy we have implemented to date and the scale of the opportunities we can harness.”
He further adds: “Central Bank of Egypt initiatives that are continuously being introduced in the market to support fintech companies were key to Paymob’s growth. The Central Bank has created a regulatory framework to help fintech flourish and participate in making Egypt’s digital financial inclusion ambitions a reality.”
“Paymob shares our mission and ambition of advancing digital payments adoption – it has made impressive strides in supporting the growth and success of underserved SMBs,” stated Ashish Aggarwal, Director, PayPal Ventures. “We’re honored to be investing at a critical point in their journey, as Paymob scales game-changing solutions to bridge the fintech gap for businesses across the Middle East and Africa.”
“We are excited to partner with Paymob as they innovate at scale in the offline merchant acquiring and online payment gateway space,” stated Nitin Saigal, Founder, of Kora Management. “The Paymob team is leveraging key structural changes taking place across Egypt and the Middle East, as these economies evolve from being primarily cash-led to a digital heavy mode of transacting. We look forward to the road ahead.”
Paymob also added that this round comes on the back of robust growth across the Paymob platform in 2021, with the number of merchants and monthly volumes growing by 4x year-on-year as of December 2021. Paymob claims to have 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.