Egyptian Fintech Startup MoneyHash raises $3B in funding

MoneyHash, an Egyptian fintech startup that leverages a unified checkout experience and a universal API to help businesses consolidate and build their payments and financial tech stack, has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding as it prepares to launch across the Middle East and Africa.

The pre-seed round was led by UAE-based venture capital firm COTU Ventures and included MENA fintech fund VentureSouq and European fund VentureFriends. Nuwa Capital, The Continent Venture Partners, First Check Africa, Fox Ventures, Kepple Africa Ventures, and Lofty Capital Inc. are also participating funds.

MoneyHash is a unified checkout experience built on top of a secure super-API that aggregates payment and fintech solutions through a single integration, as well as a central dashboard consolidating technical infrastructure and centralizing data and operational reporting. It was founded in late 2020 by Nader Abdelrazik, Mustafa Eid, and Anisha Sekar.

The business, which concluded a six-figure pre-seed investment round in June of last year, has now announced a US$3 million extension to that round, which will help it achieve its lofty goal of becoming the "AWS of payments." MoneyHash plans to use the funding to expand its personnel and product capabilities.

COTU Ventures, a UAE-based venture capital firm, led the round, which also included MENA fintech fund VentureSouq and European fund Venture Friends. Nuwa Capital, The Continent Venture Partners, First Check Africa, Fox Ventures, Kepple Africa Ventures, and LoftyInc Capital Management are among the other funds involved.

“When it comes to emerging markets, and particularly the Middle East & Africa, these challenges are magnified,” adds Nader Abdelrazik, co-founder and CEO. “The region is highly fragmented due to the lack of economic integration between countries in MEA, which means that the countries’ payment methods, currencies, and regulations operate in isolation. By building a custom infrastructure with a single integration and a central dashboard, we provide a platform for companies to grow and address this complexity without depleting their resources.”

MoneyHash has received investment as it prepares to deploy its platform across the Middle East and North Africa (MEA). Without breaking the bank, the startup enables businesses in emerging regions to streamline their payment stack and optimize pay-in/pay-out operations. Early-stage businesses typically start with one or two payment processing and payout providers, but as they grow, they must add provider after provider to satisfy their expanding needs.

“Each expansion can take an in-house tech team 3-10 weeks, not to mention the ongoing demands of reporting reconciliation, operational inefficiencies, and technical vulnerabilities,” said Mustafa Eid, co-founder and CTO at MoneyHash. “And that’s a challenge we are passionate to solve.”

Since early 2021, the firm has been in beta, with 17 companies testing integration and technologies in its sandbox environment. The team did thorough user research with over 150 businesses, enlisted several service providers from around the region, and developed a comprehensive toolkit.

MoneyHash users can connect to services across the revenue stack with only one connection point, from pay-in/pay-out providers across MEA to value-added services like KYC, fraud detection, and loyalty programs.

The startup has customizable services which include a unified checkout experience for e-commerce, consolidated reporting for business analytics, and micro-services like transaction routing, subscription management, and invoicing, in addition to the Super-API. It allows businesses to rapidly and simply create a payment stack that meets their specific requirements.