Egypt’s ElGameya Scores Six-Figure Pre-Seed Funding

Peer-to-peer lending platform ElGameya has announced a six-figure pre-seed investment round, led by AUC Angels, with participation from both the Cairo Angels and Alex Angels, who have all seen the potential in this rapidly growing space. 

An innovative mobile application, ElGameya digitises traditional Egyptian Gam’eyas, also known as money circles or ROSCA cycles. Users can either use it as a platform to digitize their private money circles, or get matched to users with similar saving/lending capabilities in a public circle. Apart from its in-app payment facility, ElGameya’s app also features a built-in marketplace enabling users to access exclusive discounted products as a cash-out option.

ElGameya is a graduate of AUC’s Venture Lab FinTech accelerator programme, and plans to use it’s newly raised funds to enhance the app’s features and grow its user base, targeting 1000 cycles by 2021.

“ElGameya has long been used as a creative tool by the middle class to finance different needs, such as marriage, furniture, and cars. Now that we are in the age of FinTech, the time has come for digitising the gam’eya to be more practical, efficient, and increase the benefits it offers. ElGameya’s app is about people, helping them achieve what they want, we believe in its social impact,” explains Ahmed Mahmoud, founder and CEO of ElGameya. 

“We are very pleased to have closed this investment round and to have co-invested in this opportunity with other regional angel investors. We are very confident in ElGameya’s team and the sky is the limit for them!” says Zeina Mandour, General Manager of The Cairo Angels.

“ElGameya can really capitalise on the immense potential present in peer-to-peer lending, by modernising the pervasive and age-old tradition of gam3ieat. This investment round demonstrates investors’ belief in its possibilities,” adds Mariam Kamel, Manager of AUC Angels.