MoneyHash, an Egyptian fintech startup that uses a universal API and a unified checkout experience to help businesses across Africa and the Middle East consolidate and grow their payments and financial tech stack, has raised a six-figure pre-seed round to expand its services across the region. COTU Ventures, a venture capital firm based in the United Arab Emirates, led the round, which also included the Ventures Platform, Kepple Africa Ventures, and angel investors.
“MEA is one of the fastest growing emerging markets with a rapidly evolving payment and fintech scene. As many companies in the region and abroad plan their expansion across the region, they are faced with a devastating technical and operational hassle: building a separate connection with each service provider while providing a unified experience for their customers. This results in a complicated tech stack wasting valuable resources with increased vulnerabilities to errors, fraud, and technical debt. MoneyHash’s technology abstracts the complexities of this fragmented market and allow businesses to scale and grow with a complete focus on their product, and without compromising security and efficiency,” said Nader Abdelrazik, co-founder and CEO of MoneyHash.
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Why The Investors Invested
“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. The clarity with which they articulated their vision and strategy, and the chemistry we felt from the start, convinced us to support them in kick starting their plans to build a payments super API for the region and beyond. We are grateful they chose us as partners and are looking forward to what’s ahead,” said Amir Farha, Managing Partner of COTU Ventures.
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Kola Aina, founding partner at Ventures Platform also noted:
“We are excited to back the MoneyHash team. The team’s vision is compelling, and the product enables companies to scale their products and services across Africa and the Middle east with minimal friction. They are essentially powering the growth and expansion of startups and enterprise across the region.”
A Look At What The Startup Does
The three co-founders of MoneyHash, Nader Abdelrazik, Mustafa Eid, and Anisha Sekar, formed the company in late 2020. They have over 30 years of combined expertise and have worked for 11 businesses, as well as a long list of businesses and educational institutions, including Microsoft, UpWork, NerdWallet, UC Berkeley, SigFig, and Brown University.
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The company offers a unified checkout experience based on a secure Super-API that combines payment and financial solutions via a single interface and a consolidated dashboard that consolidates technical infrastructure and centralizes data and operational reporting.
“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. 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.” said Anisha Sekar, co-founder and CPO of MoneyHash.
MoneyHash is now in private beta, with intentions to launch in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates soon. By 2022, the business hopes to be fully functioning in a number of African and Middle Eastern nations.
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Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning write