“With steady growth in our user base, we have been working hard over the past year in order to optimize and perfect our product and are now ready to begin our scaling journey. We will dedicate the money from this bridge round to raise greater awareness for MoneyFellows, in order to allow a much greater number of users to access our application and meet their saving and financial needs,” noted Ahmed, speaking to MENAbytes.The startup also has secured corporate deals with different companies in Egypt in order to facilitate participation of their employees in money circles
Speaking of their expansion plans, Ahmed said that they’re aiming to expand in MENA to different neighboring countries in the region in 2020 after closing their Series A. The startup is currently in advanced discussions with many key financial and telecommunication players in MENA to work on its potential expansion there. Originally started in the United Kindgom, MoneyFellows moved its headquarters to Egypt later and currently employs a team of over 40 employees, all of whom are based in Cairo.
MoneyFellows makes money by charging a small service fee on monthly installments paid by the members. “Our business model is currently comprised of collecting service fees from our users depending on their payout position in the money circle – starting with 5% fees for users with early payouts at the beginning of the circle, incrementally decreasing to zero fees for users paid out at the end of the circle. With millions of dollars moving through our accounts MoneyFellows are able to earn a percentage of float interest on our money in circulation. We are also planning to introduce several new options to generate revenue, including allowing our users to utilize MoneyFellows for bill payments, as well as using MoneyFellows in a variety of merchant locations,” explained Ahmed in a conversation with MENAbytes. MoneyFellows plans to use the latest investment for scaling the userbase mainly. It also plans to raise a $3 million Series A by the end of this year. MoneyFellows has also partnered with different financial institutions including Fawry to make it easy for its users to pay their monthly installments and receive the payouts. Its partnership with Fawry allows users of MoneyFellows to pay installments at over 80,000 Fawry Pointof- Sale devices located all across Egypt and receive their payouts at over 200 Fawry Plus stores.
Emerging Online Shopping Store in UAE
“With steady growth in our user base, we have been working hard over the past year in order to optimize and perfect our product and are now ready to begin our scaling journey. We will dedicate the money from this bridge round to raise greater awareness for MoneyFellows, in order to allow a much greater number of users to access our application and meet their saving and financial needs,” noted Ahmed, speaking to MENAbytes.The startup also has secured corporate deals with different companies in Egypt in order to facilitate participation of their employees in money circles
Speaking of their expansion plans, Ahmed said that they’re aiming to expand in MENA to different neighboring countries in the region in 2020 after closing their Series A. The startup is currently in advanced discussions with many key financial and telecommunication players in MENA to work on its potential expansion there. Originally started in the United Kindgom, MoneyFellows moved its headquarters to Egypt later and currently employs a team of over 40 employees, all of whom are based in Cairo.
Cairo-based fintech MoneyFellows has raised over $1 million in a bridge round (Pre-Series A), the startup told MENAbytes. The investment came from 500 Startups and Dubai Angel Investors, both of which had previously invested in company’s seed round as well, last year, Beirut-based Phoenician Fund, and some individual investors including some of its previous angels. Founded in late 2016 by Ahmed Wadi, MoneyFellows is digitizing concept of money circles (ROSCAs), commonly known as gam’eya in Egypt and other Arab countries.
The years-old practice that is common across many countries in the world, known as chit funds in India, committee in Pakistan and Tandas in Mexico, allows a group of people (normally friends or coworkers) contribute a fixed installment every month to a pool with one of the members taking whole pool as payout every month. The circle ends when everyone receives their payout and is usually repeated if the participants are interested. MoneyFellows with its group pooling platform for credit and savings is digitizing the entire process of money circles with a scoring model that complements current offline model, making it more scalable, safe and efficient.
MoneyFellows plans to use the investment for scaling the userbase It also plans to raise a $3 million Series A by the end of this year
Ahmed Wadi, CEO
“Our priority is to grow the market share. We will make sure that we strengthen our position. We want to make sure that we grow faster than others. I think that’s most important,” Dr. Shanith Added. Dr Shanith said: “We believe that there should be a lot more growth potential in the GCC, so we should focus our effort and resources in this region. Whereas the e-commerce industry in UAE is more mature, Saudi Arabia markets have still great opportunity.”
MoneyFellows makes money by charging a small service fee on monthly installments paid by the members. “Our business model is currently comprised of collecting service fees from our users depending on their payout position in the money circle – starting with 5% fees for users with early payouts at the beginning of the circle, incrementally decreasing to zero fees for users paid out at the end of the circle. With millions of dollars moving through our accounts MoneyFellows are able to earn a percentage of float interest on our money in circulation. We are also planning to introduce several new options to generate revenue, including allowing our users to utilize MoneyFellows for bill payments, as well as using MoneyFellows in a variety of merchant locations,” explained Ahmed in a conversation with MENAbytes. MoneyFellows plans to use the latest investment for scaling the userbase mainly. It also plans to raise a $3 million Series A by the end of this year. MoneyFellows has also partnered with different financial institutions including Fawry to make it easy for its users to pay their monthly installments and receive the payouts. Its partnership with Fawry allows users of MoneyFellows to pay installments at over 80,000 Fawry Pointof- Sale devices located all across Egypt and receive their payouts at over 200 Fawry Plus stores.
Emerging Online Shopping Store in UAE
“With steady growth in our user base, we have been working hard over the past year in order to optimize and perfect our product and are now ready to begin our scaling journey. We will dedicate the money from this bridge round to raise greater awareness for MoneyFellows, in order to allow a much greater number of users to access our application and meet their saving and financial needs,” noted Ahmed, speaking to MENAbytes.The startup also has secured corporate deals with different companies in Egypt in order to facilitate participation of their employees in money circles
Speaking of their expansion plans, Ahmed said that they’re aiming to expand in MENA to different neighboring countries in the region in 2020 after closing their Series A. The startup is currently in advanced discussions with many key financial and telecommunication players in MENA to work on its potential expansion there. Originally started in the United Kindgom, MoneyFellows moved its headquarters to Egypt later and currently employs a team of over 40 employees, all of whom are based in Cairo.
