MoneyHash has raised an undisclosed fee from pre-seed investment led by Amir Farha’s COTU Ventures. African early-stage VCs Ventures Platform, Kepple Africa Ventures, and some angel investors also participated in the round.
“It’s rare to find such a well-rounded and complete team with deep domain experience and technical prowess so early in a company’s life. We’re very excited to back Nader, Anisha, and Mustafa, as they look to tackle a problem that suits a fragmented region like the Middle East... We are grateful they chose us as partners and are looking forward to what’s ahead.” Amir Farha, the Managing Partner of COTU Ventures.
The company, which was launched in 2020, aims to build a super API for payments that aggregates payments that integrates payment and fintech solutions, allowing merchants to provide a unified checkout experience to their customers – and access data and reports through one central dashboard.
“We are crafting a comprehensive revenue solution built for flexibility and scaling. With a unified checkout experience powered by a single API integration, businesses throughout MEA can instantly access the providers and products they need to grow." Anisha Sekar, co-founder and CPO of MoneyHash, said.
"We increase speed to market and save weeks of effort upfront, and with a complete view of the revenue stack, we provide insights, automations, and smart routing to save time and money in the long term. Our mission is to build an efficient, secure, comprehensive solution that helps – rather than hinders – growing businesses,” She added.
Currently, the Cairo-based fintech is testing its service in private beta and plans to go live soon in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. MoneyHash is also eyeing other geographies and intends to offer its service across multiple geographies in the Middle East and Africa by the end of 2022.
Merchants who want to use MoneyHash's super API must have accounts with any payment processor they want to be part of their checkout experience. Currently, the company is working on a partnership that includes three payment processors, two KYC companies, and an open banking company. The partnership aims to facilitate account opening and offer an end-to-end experience to merchants
Speaking about the pricing, Nader Abdelrazik - co-founder and CEO pointed out that they will charge merchants with a subscription plus a micro transaction fee. According to him, the startup is still experimenting with different combinations and will have more details to share when it launches publicly.
MoneyHash plans to use the funds to further develop its technology, scale its team and launch its services.
Egypt in focus
GDP: $303.092 billion compared to Algeria's $171.091 billion in 2019
Population: 100,388,073 compared to Algeria's 43,053,054 in 2019
GDP per capita: $3,019 compared to Algeria's $3,974 in 2019