Egypt’s Fintech Telda Secures $20 Million Seed Funding To “Revolutionize Finance For The MENA Region”

Egyptian fintech startup Telda, otherwise referred to as a consumer money app has secured $20 million in seed funding to “revolutionize finance for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, according to its statement. The round was led by existing investors Sequoia Capital and Global Founders Capital (GFC). Other participants in the round include Jack Dorsey’s Block. The round also follows a $5 million pre-seed round that took place last may.

The startup was founded in April 2021 by former Swvl executive Ahmad Sabbah with Youssef Sholqamy. Startups like Telda provide card products and are looking to leverage the slow but imminent transition to cashless options for payments. While Egypt is one of Africa’s highest consumer spending markets, the country is still largely dependent on cash. 

The startup already had obtained a license from Egypt’s apex bank; the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) under its new regulations, as of last year. This license allows Telda to issue cards and serve customers on via its digital platform. The fintech, although it had acquired this license, didn’t launch its app and card products to the more than 30,000 people that had signed up.

According to reports, the startup was yet to go live in its home market after raising sufficient funding because it ran into new issues with the Central Bank of Egypt; one of these problems was the appropriate licensing it needed to be called a digital bank which seemed to be how Telda described itself as of that time. The fintech’s co-founder and CEO, however, denied this. “We are humbled to be the first company to receive the license in Egypt. Egypt’s commitment to shaping the future of finance and establishing itself as a global fintech hub is reflected in the support we’ve received from regulators over the past year,” he said. 

A few weeks ago, Telda secured regulatory approval/license from Egypt’s apex bank to launch as a consumer money and payment app in the Egyptian market. The startup also started its operations last month, launching an app and a card powered by Mastercard. So far, it has issued 25,000 cards and has a waiting list of 110,000 customers who have ordered their cards. According to information from Telda’s app, the platform wants to “change the way people feel about and interact with their finances in this part of the world: from money transfers to online/offline purchases to saving habits.”

Out of its 100 million people, only 50 percent are active smartphone users. Also,  two out of every three Egyptians have little or no access to formal financial services. Hence platforms like Telda with rivals like Sympl, Lucky, and Khazna, looking to provide these financial services.

Telda’s CEO said that in the past year, the company has learned that delving into the market with a minimum-functioning product doesn’t create a different product than what is already being offered by traditional financial institutions. He also said that “We’ve also learned that customers are craving an intuitive user experience when it comes to banking, similar to what they see in the daily applications they use, social media. We believe our competition is and has always been Cash and this is the hardest competition to face in MENA. We’re laser-focused towards changing how Egyptians feel about and interact with their money.”

What the co-founder and CEO may be trying to say is that Telda used the past year to tweak its products and onboard strategies before launching publicly. Telda says the newly-acquired funding will allow it to digitalize the use and concept of money in Egypt. It will also digitalize how people send, spend and save money.

“We are incredibly excited to further strengthen our partnership with Telda. The company has launched a product that is better than most international consumer payments companies, and Ahmed and Youssef have attracted some of the brightest Egyptian talents in product, engineering, and GTM. We are confident that Telda will continue to amaze Egyptian customers with an outstanding product experience and exceptional service in the coming years,” Roel Janssen, a partner at lead investor Global Founders Capital, said on the investment.