Egyptian startup, Money Fellows, generates $31m Series B fundraising

During the first closure of a financing round of category (B), Money Fellows, one of the fastest growing Egyptian financial technology platforms, attracted fresh foreign investments of 31 million dollars, increasing the total foreign investments in the firm to almost 40 million dollars.

Consequently, Dr. Amr Talaat, Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology, met with Ahmed Wadi, founder and CEO of the firm, to discuss the company’s future plans.

This investment positions the firm to become the foremost financial platform in the Middle East and Africa by 2025.

What is Money Fellows?

Money Fellows aspires to modernise the financial circles known as “money saving associations” in Egypt and the Arab world by converting them to a digital format.

It intends to do this via the use of a mobile application that enables users to subscribe to financial circles and follow them with other members, regardless of whether or not they are members of the circle of knowledge.

In addition to the ability to define the amount and due date, the company’s application offers a variety of payment and receipt options, such as credit cards and cash.

The fundraising round will enable Money Fellows to accelerate their development by extending their range of services, boosting their product offerings for both individual and corporate customers, and expanding geographically into Africa and Asia.

CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners, and Arzan Venture Capital finalised the round. In addition to previous investors such as Partech, Sawari Ventures, 4DX, and P1Ventures, Invenfin and the National Investment Company also participated in the round.

Egypt: A startup-centric African nation

During the meeting, Dr. Amr Talaat described the efforts undertaken by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to retain Egypt’s enviable standing in the domain of entrepreneurship and new ventures.

Egypt ranks first in terms of the number of annual transactions involving young ICT businesses and second in terms of the amount of investments in North Africa and the Middle East.

Dr. Amr Talaat said that the ministry has a policy to promote the capacities of rising enterprises in the industry and to raise the amount of foreign investments in them.

The strategy entails the establishment of Egypt’s digital innovation centres, through which startups receive training, as well as the provision of business acceleration programmes, incubator programmes for startups, and the establishment of networking forums with investors from leading ICT companies in and outside of Egypt.

During the latter phase, negotiations are conducted that, in the majority of instances, will be successful, as was the case with Money Fellows, and capital is injected into start-up companies, allowing them to expand their scope of activity and bolstering their ability to market their products in new markets.

Dr. Amr Talaat stated that Egypt’s digital innovation centres are being developed to foster the growth of start-up businesses, increase their number, and enhance their capacity to compete and expand.

In addition, he said that eight Egypt Digital Creativity Centers have been inaugurated and that ten other centres would begin trial operations early the next year.

The ultimate objective is to build the remaining centres in order to achieve 30 innovation centres at the level of the Republic, with investments exceeding 5 billion pounds.

The second pillar of the ministry’s policy to help startups, according to Dr. Amr Talaat, is training to give the specialised skills needed by entrepreneurs in different governorates.

It is noteworthy that the Money Fellows application has acquired over 4 million downloads, over 250,000 active users, and an annual growth rate of up to eightfold.