• Zeal, an Egypt-based fintech and customer loyalty app, has closed a $4 million funding round led by Raed Ventures and Cur8 Capital, along with strategic angel investors.
• Founded in 2019 by Omar Ebeid, Zeal offers payment solutions to retailers and other offline businesses to improve in-store customer engagement and brand loyalty. Its SmartPOS Plugin technology enables credit card machines to identify, segment, and retarget in-store customers. 
• The startup recently expanded to the UK, with plans to increase its footprint into the wider Mena market using the freshly acquired funds. 
• It currently works to build data and analytics solutions specifically for the FMCG and telecoms sectors.

Press release 

Zeal is excited to announce a successful $4M funding round led by Raed Ventures and Cur8 Capital, along with strategic angel investors. This capital injection is aimed at expanding Zeal's innovative technology solutions across the EMEA region, following its recent expansion into the UK market.

Central to Zeal's product offering is the SmartPOS Plugin, redefining the very essence of in-store customer engagement and payment intelligence. Their revolutionary technology enables credit card machines to identify, segment, and retarget in-store customers, transforming the way physical retailers engage with and retain their clientele.

The fintech startup has already made significant progress in the payments industry by partnering with leading entities like Ingenico and Network International and earning awards such as the Visa Everywhere Initiative. This funding will further Zeal's reach and impact, enhancing their existing payment acquirers portfolio and ease of integrating with POS terminals globally. The management team also shared their plans to build advanced data and analytics solutions for FMCGs and Telecom sectors.

Founder and CEO Omar Ebeid expressed excitement about the future: "This investment will accelerate our journey towards utilizing AI to revolutionize retail customer engagement on a global scale. We are committed to broadening our impact, with a focus on connecting billions of customers with millions of retailers."

Wael Nafee from Raed Ventures added, "We’re very excited to back Omar and the team at Zeal with an Egypt & MENA-based team building a global first product offering. The global payment acquiring space is hungering for value-added service disruptors that can propel the next phase of innovation. We believe that Zeal's holistic product is a key innovative solution to payment service providers and POS manufacturers globally."

With a strong foundation and a clear vision, Zeal is poised to lead the charge in becoming the leading Value Added Service solution for payment acquirers and merchants globally.