Egyptian fintech startup MoneyHash, which uses a universal API and a unified checkout experience to help businesses consolidate and grow their payments and financial tech stack, has announced a US$3 million pre-seed funding round as it emerges from beta to launch across the Middle East and Africa.
What you should know about MoneyHash
- MoneyHash was founded in Egypt by Nader Abdelrazik, Mustafa Eid and Anisha Sekar and allows 17 companies to use its sandbox environment to connect with its API and access payments gateways such as Fawry, Paymob and PayTabs.
- The startup intends to work with payment gateway in the Middle East and North Africa post-beta such as; Checkout, Stripe, Ayden, Amazon Pay, Tap and ValU whilst also integrating payment providers in sub-Saharan Africa like Yoco, Paystack and Flutterwave.
Founded in late 2020 by Nader Abdelrazik, Mustafa Eid and Anisha Sekar, MoneyHash provides 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 centralising data and operational reporting.
The startup, which in June of last year closed a six-figure US dollar pre-seed funding round, has now announced a US$3 million extension to that round, which will power its ambitious plan to become the “AWS of payments”. MoneyHash will use the funds to grow its team and extend the capabilities of its product.
The round was led by UAE-based venture capital firm COTU Ventures, with the participation of MENA fintech fund VentureSouq and European fund VentureFriends. Other participating funds include Nuwa Capital, The Continent Venture Partners, First Check Africa, Fox Ventures, Kepple Africa Ventures and LoftyInc Capital Management.
A global group of angel investors also participated, including NerdWallet’s Tim Chen and Jake Gibson, Belvo’s Oriol Tintore, and regional operators such as Jad Antoun (Huspy), Feras Jalbout (Baraka), and Hussein Elkheshen (Sakneen).
The funding comes as MoneyHash emerges from beta to launch its platform across the MEA region. The startup empowers businesses in emerging markets to streamline their payment stack and optimise pay-in/pay-out operations without breaking the bank. Early-stage companies often start with one or two providers for payment processing and payout, but as they grow they have to tack on provider after provider to meet their growing 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.”
“When it comes to emerging markets, and particularly the Middle East and Africa, these challenges are magnified,” said 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.”
The company has been in beta since early 2021, with 17 companies using their sandbox environment to test integration and tools. The team has conducted extensive user research with over 150 companies, engaged multiple providers across the region, and built a comprehensive suite of tools.
With one connection point, MoneyHash users can connect with services across the revenue stack, from pay-in/pay-out providers across MEA to value-added service providers such as KYC, fraud detection, and loyalty programmes.
In addition to the Super-API, MoneyHash offers customisable services for a variety of businesses – a unified checkout experience for e-commerce, centralised reporting for business intelligence, and micro-services such as transaction routing, subscription management, and invoicing.
