Egypt’s MoneyFellows Secures $1 Million Funding, set to Digitize Money Circles Across Borders

MoneyFellows, a fintech platform based in Cairo, Egypt has secured $1 million in a Pre-Series A round. The fund was secured from 500 Startups, Dubai Angel Investors, Beirut-based Phoenician Fund and others. The platform aims to use the newly secured fund to scale its user base and to expand across borders by 2020-2021.

The platform which plans to raise $3 million in a Series A funding by the end of 2019, was founded in 2016 by Ahmed Wadi. This was in a bid to digitize money circles which falls under ROSCAs (Rotating Savings and Credit Association). MoneyFellows commenced operations in the United Kingdom but relocated its headquarters to Egypt. The company currently has a team of over 40 employees and is known in Egypt and other Arab countries as gam’eya.

Money circles is a process that allows a group of people to contribute a certain amount of money, weekly or monthly to a pool. At the end of the month, a member takes the whole pool and circle continues till the last person in the group has cashed out. Once everyone has received a payout, the circle ends and repeated if the group members are interested.

MoneyFellows is a credit and savings platform that digitizes the entire money circles process. The platform achieves this through a scoring model that makes the platform more scalable, safe and efficient. They make profits through monthly small service charge paid by users.

The platform grants users’ access to set up a profile and upload documents which the MoneyFellows team will use to verify their income and personal details. Upon MoneyFellows’ credit valuation, users are granted access to several available matching circles, after which they select a preferred slot, a mode of payment and payout. They grant users a better score and limit when they share more information and verification documents.

The platform partnered Fawry to ensure seamless payment and payouts for their users. The partnership grants users’ access to seamlessly make payments at Fawry’s over 80,000 point-of-sale devices and also receive payouts at over 200 Fawry Plus Stores across Egypt.

Ahmed Wadi, MoneyFellows Founder said that the company aims to expand across MENA at the end of their Series A round in 2020 and across Africa by 2021.