Money Fellows, an Egyptian fintech business, announced that it has received $31 million to extend its service offerings and grow across Africa and Asia.
Led by Germany’s CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners and Kuwait’s Arzan Venture Capital, this was the company’s fourth funding round since 2018.
Starting with $600,000 in a seed round from 500 start-ups and Dubai angel investors, it has raised a total of $36.6 million. In 2019 and 2020, it raised $1 million and $4 million, respectively.
The round included investors like ParTech, Sawari Ventures of Egypt, 4DX Ventures, and P1Ventures, as well as Invenfin of South Africa and National Investments Company of Kuwait.
Money Fellows is a smartphone platform that was established in 2016 to digitise money circles or rotating savings and credit groups. The app has more than 250,000 active users with around more than 4 million downloads.
Known as “gameya”, it is denoted to rotating savings and credit associations in Egypt or other Arab nations where this group of individuals together work as an informal financial institution.
Here’s how this system works, consider a group of ten persons who decide to pay $1,000 every month for ten months. A member receives $10,000 at the end of each month, and this process is repeated until everyone has received their payout. Because it can be dangerous when dealing with strangers, this technique functions best when used with a close-knit group of friends or family. But the downside of such a system is that you cannot access more capital, that is where Money Fellows comes where the base of participants is much bigger, who have gone through a credit assessment process and can join any groups through the app.
Through the platform, users may efficiently manage and plan their financial responsibilities and realise their financial objectives. The startup provides a safe, practical, economical, and motivating alternative to conventional finance that is more socially and culturally acceptable.
According to Money Fellows, there are 2.4 billion people who use money circles via the traditional way and the area is mostly untouched and ready for disruption.
The company has collaborated with several financial institutions and payment processors, including Vodafone Cash this year, Fawry in 2019, Banque Misr and Mastercard in 2021, and Fawry in 2019.
