Egypt’s Fintech Startup MoneyFellow Raises $31 Million Series B

MoneyFellows, an Egyptian fintech platform, has raised $31 million in Series B funding led by CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), and Arzan Venture Capital. The round also witnessed participation from Invenfin, National Investment Company (NIC) as well as existing investors including Partech, Sawari Ventures, 4DX and P1Ventures.

Founded in 2016 by Ahmed Wadi, MoneyFellows is a mobile based platform that digitizes ‘money circles’ - also known as ‘gameya’ in the Arab world- using a scoring model. This model enables users to effectively manage their finances by having members of each circle commit to paying an installment into a pool with one member taking the whole pool as payout on a monthly basis. The circle ends when everyone receives their payout.

“We are proud to share with our stakeholders and our users the progress and growth which led MoneyFellows to become one of the market-leading FinTechs in Egypt, facilitating financial inclusion and digital transformation in the country,” Ahmed Wadi, Founder and CEO of MoneyFellows, tells StartupScene. “The support we received from leading local and global venture capital firms in times of instability and scarcity of growth capital rounds is a testament to their faith and confidence in our business model, our team, and the overall opportunity that lies in the Egyptian market.”

This latest round of funding brings the startup’s total investments raised to $36.6 million, having secured $5.6 million in both series A and seed funding in 2020 and 2019 respectively. MoneyFellows will use the new capital to accelerate its growth by diversifying its portfolio of services and expanding its product offerings across the B2C & B2B verticals.

It also aims to expand across Africa and Asia. Fintech is a booming sector in Egypt’s startup ecosystem. In H1 2022, investments in fintech and fintech-enabled businesses reached an all time high of $167 million, a 12x increase compared to 2017, according to Fintech Investment-Focused H1 2022 Landscape Review.