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MoneyHash closes $5.2 million pre-Series A for MEA expansion plans

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MoneyHash closes $5.2 million pre-Series A for MEA expansion plans
  • US-based Egyptian fintech MoneyHash has secured $5.2 million in pre-Series A funding.
  • The round is led by Flourish Ventures, along with Vision Ventures, Arab Bank's Xelerate, and Emurgo Kepple Ventures, with participation from Jason Gardner and existing investors, including COTU, RZM Investment, and Github founder Tom Preston-Werner.
  • Founded in late 2020 by Nader Abdelrazik, Mustafa Eid and Anisha Sekar, MoneyHash is a payment orchestration that offers a comprehensive payment operating system as a service to address the various technological and product challenges faced by enterprise merchants. 
  • The newly acquired capital will be deployed to accelerate MoneyHash's market penetration in the MEA region.
  • In early 2024, MoneyHash closed a $4.5 million Seed round, co-led by COTU Ventures and Sukna Ventures with others.

Press release:

MoneyHash, the first and leading payment orchestration platform operating in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), has secured $5.2 million in pre-Series A funding. Flourish Ventures, a global fintech investor behind industry leaders like Chime, Flutterwave, FairMoney, and Neon, led the round, adding to its portfolio of over 100 fintech startups. Additional investors include Saudi's Vision Ventures, Arab Bank's Xelerate, and Emurgo Kepple Ventures. The round features the participation of Jason Gardner, founder and former CEO of Marqeta, as his first MEA investment. The round also saw continued support from existing investors COTU, RZM Investment, and Github founder Tom Preston-Werner.

Building on its momentum, MoneyHash previously secured a $4.5 million seed round in early 2024, which fuelled technological advancements and regional expansion initiatives. The swift progression to this pre-Series A round within 12 months underscores the company's exceptional growth trajectory, validated by its successful partnerships with prominent brands and remarkable performance metrics across both regional and global markets.

Payments are Complex in Emerging Markets

The payments landscape in emerging markets is plagued with poor performance metrics and operational challenges. Each market has its own complex web of payment providers, methods, and regulations, with limited standardisation or integration between regions. This fragmentation results in high operational costs, revenue leakage, and a limited ability to scale across markets.

"In emerging markets, payment infrastructure remains significantly underdeveloped, with failure rates three times the global average and fraud rates and cart abandonment over 20% higher than developed markets. Drawing from our extensive experience in MEA, one of the most challenging regions globally, we've seen firsthand how these issues transform payments from a growth enabler into a cost and risk centre," says Nader Abdelrazik, co-founder and CEO of MoneyHash.

Abdelrazik adds, "The opportunity to solve this is immense. In emerging markets, digital payments represent only a fraction of total transaction volume, suggesting massive growth potential in the coming decade. We've built MoneyHash specifically to help merchants overcome these complex challenges and turn payments from a liability into a strategic advantage."

MoneyHash offers a comprehensive payment operating system built for emerging markets, transforming existing payment setups into high-performance engines. Maram Alikaj, Chief Operating Officer of MoneyHash and former payment leader at Block (formerly Square), emphasises, "We've built our product with a deep understanding of emerging markets' unique challenges. Rather than letting merchants struggle with fragmented solutions, we provide a unified suite that elevates all payment performance metrics."

The platform seamlessly integrates with merchants' existing payment providers while delivering powerful capabilities: a unified API for pay-in and pay-out operations, a fully customiseable checkout experience, sophisticated transaction routing with built-in fraud prevention and failure rate optimisation, and comprehensive reporting tools. This core offering is enhanced by features like recurring payments, virtual wallets, subscription management, and payment links.

Alikaj adds, "What sets us apart is our focus on emerging markets combined with our unparalleled integration network. With over 300 pre-integrated APIs of payment service providers and methods across 100+ markets, we're not just solving today's challenges—we're future-proofing payment operations for our merchants. This extensive coverage, paired with our specialised feature set for emerging markets, ensures that businesses can confidently scale their payment operations while maintaining superior performance metrics."

MoneyHash's product promises a 10-15% increase in revenue generation and a 90% decrease in go-to-market and development costs.

MoneyHash Progress & Future Plans

Founded in early 2021 by Nader Abdelrazik and Mustafa Eid, MoneyHash emerged from the vision of two distinguished Egyptian technologists, leveraging their extensive expertise in fintech and enterprise software development. Following the successful deployment of their enterprise suite in early 2024, the company rapidly established itself as a preferred solution among premier regional organisations. Notable adopters include Tamara, Saudi Arabia's inaugural unicorn and preeminent fintech player; Kitopi, the distinguished unicorn revolutionising cloud kitchen operations; and Brands For Less, a significant force in global e-commerce. The company's strategic focus on large enterprise clients has yielded remarkable results, with this segment now constituting over 35% of MoneyHash's client portfolio—representing a threefold expansion in 2024. This strategic positioning has catalysed exceptional growth, resulting in a 4x increase in processing volume throughout 2024.

Ameya Upadhyay, Venture Partner at Flourish Ventures, will be joining MoneyHash's board of directors. He emphasises, "MoneyHash has built a must-have product for enterprises that delivers better payment performance and higher margins from day one. As early-stage investors with a large EM-focused payment portfolio, we have first-hand experience of the massive scale of the opportunity. The team’s deep payment experience and obsessive customer focus positions them to emerge as a leader across Emerging Markets, starting with MEA. We are privileged to be part of the journey."

"Strengthening our capital table capabilities is as crucial as enhancing our business and product offerings," explains Abdelrazik. "In our early years, we strategically focused on partnering with strong regional investors to accelerate our market penetration. Now, with Flourish Ventures joining us, we're establishing a solid foundation for global expansion. Having such a fintech, well-seasoned, globally recognised fund as our partner is particularly crucial for our next phase of growth."

MoneyHash, with its headquarters in New York City and a diverse workforce of 30 professionals distributed across nine countries, has previously secured $7.5M in total funding through two previous investment rounds. The newly acquired capital will be strategically deployed to accelerate MoneyHash's market penetration in the MEA region while laying the groundwork for strategic expansion into additional emerging markets.

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