Haitham Nassar - Afrikan Heroes

Cassbana, Egypt’s Fintech Startup Raises $1m in Funding

January 11, 2021

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven fintech startup Cassbana has raised a US$1 million pre-seed funding round as part of its expansion project. The Startup which operates on an artificial intelligence (AI) powered platform to run a behaviour-based credit-scoring system was founded last year. It uses machine learning and AI to offer financial identities for underserved and unbanked consumers, with its technology and data, sourced through an Android app, offering financial institutions and companies the opportunity to create innovative lending and financial support solutions by analysing consumer behaviour patterns.

Cassbana launched its services on a trial basis with one service provider in Cairo in June, but now has more than 20 service providers in Cairo, the Nile Delta, and other cities. The US$1 million pre-seed round was led by VC firm Disruptech, and featured some other fintech funds and angel investors. Cassbana will use the funds to grow its business and expand operations within Egypt. It plans to expand to Upper Egypt this month.

Haitham Nassar, Cassbana’s founder and chief executive officer (CEO) said that the goal of the startup is to create financial identities for the underserved and unbanked who cannot receive financing options from their suppliers and service providers to scale their small shadow businesses or to pass through a difficult time in their business journey. “Instead of them being assumed to be a high default risk, our financial identities offer them a chance to receive different financing options with a low risk of default,”

Mohamed Okasha, head of the Disruptech Fund, said he was happy to be leading the round adding that “the Egyptian fintech ecosystem is one of the biggest worldwide; our role as a fund is to support fintech companies from the beginning all the way through local and international IPOs,” Okasha said. “We have seen Cassbana’s teamwork ethic first-hand and their growth over the past six months has been massive. Disruptech admires their strategic vision both locally and internationally and this is why we chose to lead the company’s first investment round.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Egyptian Fintech Startup Cassbana Raises $1 million In Seed Funding Round To Build Financial Identities For The Unbanked

January 7, 2021

Egypt’s Cassbana, which offers lending solutions to different types of users especially those who don’t use conventional banking services, has landed $1 million in a seed round led by Egyptian fintech-fcused VC Disruptech. Cassbana plans to use the funds to expand its operations.

“We aim to establish financial identities for those dealing with institutions and service providers contracting with us, in order to enable these clients to obtain financial services, whether to grow their business or bypass any unaccounted risks. Without this financial identity, many suffer from uncomfortable and expensive options for obtaining financial services or no options at all,” Cassbana’s CEO, Haitham Nassar said in a statement.

Why The Investor Invested

The investment was made by VC Disruptech, founded by one of Egypt’s most successful fintech startups, Fawry’s co-founder and former managing director Mohamed Okasha and ‘leading finance guru’ Malek Sultan. In 2019, the VC established an Egypt-focused $25 million fintech fund and subsequently made its first two investments in Khazna & Brimore. It subsequently followed it up with investment in ecommerce startup, Fatura. The fund invests in Egyptian fintech startups across different stages.

A Look At What Cassbana Does

Founded in early 2020 by a former Careem executive Haitham Nassar, Cassbana is building financial identities for different types of users especially those who don’t use conventional banking services. It does this by offering lending solutions to different groups of these users and then using artificial intelligence and different other technologies to assign credit scores to them. In its own words, it uses short instant loans, behavioral data from the users, and machine learning, to build their financial identities.

The first group of users Cassbana is working with are the people running nano or micro-retail enterprises including grocery, cosmetics, or clothing stores. The Egyptian fintech provides these stores with inventory financing by partnering with different distributors so whenever a business owner needs inventory for their store, they can get it from one of Cassbana’s partners without having to pay any money at the time of transaction.

At the time of the transaction, the money is paid by Cassbana – which later receives it in installments from the business owner. The business owners can request financing and make the payments of their installments through Cassbana’s mobile app. After they complete the signup process, they are shown a credit limit – within which they can make the purchases from one of fintech’s partners.

When they make the payments (for their loan) on time, their credit score improves and so does the limit to obtain more inventory financing. The service was launched in June 2020 with one distributor as its partner in Cairo; the company now has 20 in different cities across Egypt.

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 writer