The most recent development in African startup finance is that the Tunisian company Paymee successfully completed a six-figure fundraising campaign with the American investment fund P1 Ventures.
With the aid of this capital infusion, the firm will largely be able to strengthen its teams. In this interview, the company’s founder and CEO, Marouen Amamou, said that the team now consists of three members, including a freelancer.
“Currently, our team consists of three persons,” he added, adding that the business hopes to add “developers and salespeople” to its ranks.
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Before expanding its operations to other countries on the African continent, the entrepreneur also plans to capitalise on the success that the startup has already achieved in order to strengthen its position on the local market.
“We intend to establish the first Moroccan implementation milestones by 2023,” Amamou said.
In order to expand their geographic reach outside Tunisia’s boundaries, he also noted that they would need to raise additional funding.
Paymee Returned From Death Following Two Frustrating Events.
Paymee was a wallet provider when it was released in 2018, allowing users to make direct payments to merchants or send money to other users.
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And as soon as the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) circular on payment institutions was issued, the founder stated that he wanted to promptly regularise the structure of his company, particularly with regard to the minimum capital of 5 million dinars required by the regulator.
“I was able to find an international investor willing to inject the necessary funds. The primary concern is that the BCT has not made public the fundamental processes for obtaining approval. After a number of months of coming and going at the BCT, the investor gave up,” Amamou stated.
However, Amamou did not stray from his original plan.
As soon as the procedures were in place, he was able to attract a second investor who required a letter guaranteeing that the BCT would not oppose the deal.
This document, according to Amamou, acts as proof that the Central Bank officially recognises the startup’s entry into the activity it claims to engage in as of the date and time mentioned in the document.
“Due to hesitation to issue this letter, the second investor decided to withdraw their financing,” Amamou explained.
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As a result, Amamou was obliged to abandon his business-to-consumer (B2C) activities and focus only on his business-to-business (B2B) operations in order to ensure the survival of his company, hence the latest funding from P1 Ventures.
A Look At What Paymee Does
Founded in 2018 by Marwen Amamou, Paymee offers online payment acceptance solutions to online merchants. The company focuses in digitising payment flows that provide card-based online payment acceptance solutions. It is possible to integrate its solution into any website or mobile application. Without a website, businesses and SMBs can generate payment links for their clients. Paymee specialises in providing merchants with innovative payment technology in order to enhance their revenue through the acceptance of digital payments.
It has recently launched a new product, a QR Code that replaces POS terminals.
paymee Tunisia paymee Tunisia
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh