Paymob credits Egypt’s Central Bank for successful fundraising and growth

The Egyptian financial technology startup Paymob announced yesterday that it raised $50 million in its second fundraising round. 

The Series B fundraising round was led by PayPal Ventures, which is the venture capital arm of the eponymous digital payment service, as well as Kora Capital in New York and Clay Point in London. The $50 million was the largest ever in a Series B fundraising round in Egypt, the state-owned Al-Ahram reported. 

Paymob provides a variety of digital payment services, including fund distribution tools and digital wallets. They focus on selling their product to businesses in the Middle East and Africa, per the Paymob website. 

CEO Islam Shawky said that the Central Bank of Egypt has helped them grow. 

“Central Bank of Egypt initiatives that are continuously being introduced in the market to support fintech companies were key to Paymob's growth,” he said, according to Al-Ahram. “The Central Bank has created a regulatory framework to help fintech flourish and participate in making Egypt's digital financial inclusion ambitions a reality.” 

Why it matters: The Egyptian economy is struggling at the moment, particularly with price increases and effects of the war in Ukraine. The country’s startup scene, however, is thriving. Shawky is not the only entrepreneur to praise the government’s role in cultivating startups and fintech. In March, the head of the Cairo-based startup Aydi, which provides financial services to farmers, called the Egyptian government a “major enabler” of fintech. 

A fintech law regulating non-banking financial services came into effect in February. 

Know more: Paymob was founded in 2015 and currently has 100,000 merchants using its services. They recently entered the Pakistani market and plan to expand into more Gulf and North African states soon, according to Al-Ahram.