Warning: session_start(): open(/opt/alt/php72/var/lib/php/session/sess_18166d7749ed7a9ace5e25de97393e63, O_RDWR) failed: Disk quota exceeded (122) in /home/shweuqjw/awajludhianaki.org/wp-content/plugins/jnews-social-login/class.jnews-social-login.php on line 83

Warning: session_start(): Failed to read session data: files (path: /opt/alt/php72/var/lib/php/session) in /home/shweuqjw/awajludhianaki.org/wp-content/plugins/jnews-social-login/class.jnews-social-login.php on line 83
YC-backed Ziina raises $7.5M seed led by Avenir Growth Capital and Class 5 Global – TechCrunch - Awaj Ludhiana Ki
Sunday, June 8, 2025
  • Home
  • National
  • International
  • Movies
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Fitness
  • Lifestyle
  • Punjab
  • Contact us
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Home Technology

YC-backed Ziina raises $7.5M seed led by Avenir Growth Capital and Class 5 Global – TechCrunch

by author
June 7, 2021
in Technology
0
YC-backed Ziina raises $7.5M seed led by Avenir Growth Capital and Class 5 Global – TechCrunch
0
SHARES
35
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


Cash is the predominant method of sending and receiving payments in the Middle East. If you owe someone a cup of coffee or a trip over a long period, repaying via cash is your best bet. This is one problem out of many financial issues that haven’t been addressed in the region.

The good news is that startups are springing up to provide solutions. Last month Telda, a now two-month-old startup in Egypt, raised an impressive sum as pre-seed to offer digital banking services. Today, Ziina, another startup based in Dubai, has closed $7.5 million in seed funding to scale its peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service across the Middle East and North Africa.

Ziina has managed to enlist top global investors and fintech founders in the round. Avenir Growth and Class 5 Global led this latest tranche of financing. Wamda Capital, FJ Labs, Graph Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Jabbar Internet Group, Oman Technology Fund’s Jasoor Ventures, and ANIM also participated.

The founders who took part include Checkout CEO Guillaume Pousaz via his investment fund Zinal Growth; Krishnan Menon, BukuKas CEO, as well as executives from Paypal and Venmo. This adds to a roster of executives and early employees from Revolut, Stripe, Brex, Notion, and Deel that joined Ziina’s round.

According to the company, it has raised over $8.6 million since launching last year. This includes the $850,000 pre-seed raised in May 2020 and $125,000 secured after going through Y Combinator’s Winter batch early this year.

Ziina was founded by Faisal Toukan, Sarah Toukan, and Andrew Gold. It’s the latest addition to the Middle East’s bubbling fintech ecosystem and is capitalising on the region’s rapid adoption of fintech friendly regulation.

The company allows users to send and receive payments with just a phone number —no IBAN or swift code required as is the de facto method in the UAE and some parts of the Middle East. It also claims to be the country’s first licensed social peer-to-peer application “on a mission to simplify finance for everyone.”

After meeting during a hackathon in the U.S., Faisal and Gold began exchanging ideas on how to build wallets, wanting to mirror the successes platforms like WePay, Paytm have had. At the time, VCs seemed to be interested in how the wallets ecosystem intersected with banking.

“The lines between wallets and banking have become really blurred. Every wallet has a banking partner, and people who use wallets use them for their day-to-day needs,” CEO Faisal Toukan said to TechCrunch.

On the other hand, Sarah, who is Faisal’s sister, was on her personal fintech journey in London. There, she attended several meetups headlined by the founders of Monzo and Revolut. With her knowledge and the experience of the other two, the founders decided that solving P2P payments issues was their own way of driving massive impact in the Middle East.

So how far have they gone? “We launched a beta for the market but it’s restricted for regulatory reasons and basically to keep ourselves in check with the ecosystem,” Toukan remarked. “Since then, we’ve gotten regulated. We’ve got a banking partner, one of the three largest banks in the UAE, and we’ve set a new wallet a month from now. That’s also what we were working throughout our period in YC. So it’s been quite an eventful year.”

The fintech sector in MENA is growing fast; in terms of numbers, at a CAGR of 30%. Also, in the UAE, it is estimated that over 450 fintech companies will raise about $2 billion in 2022 compared to the $80 million raised in 2017. Fintechs in the region are focused on solving payments, transfers, and remittances. Alongside its P2P offering, these are the areas Ziina wants to play in, including investment and cryptocurrency services.

According to Toukan, there’s no ease of making online investments, and remittances are done in exchange houses, a manual process where people need to visit an office physically. “So what we’re looking to do is to bring all these products to life in the UAE and expand beyond that. But the first pain point we’re solving for is for people to send and receive money with two clicks,” the CEO affirmed.

Starting with P2P has its own advantages. First, peer-to-peer services is a repeat behavioural mechanism that allows companies to establish trust with customers. Also, it’s a cheaper customer acquisition model. Toukan says that as Zinna expands geographically — Saudi Arabia and Jordan in 2022; and Egypt and Tunisia some years from now — he wants the company’s wallet to become basically seamless cross border. “We want a situation where if you move into Saudi or Dubai, you’re able to use the same wallet versus using different banking applications,” he added. 

To be on the right side of regulation is key to any fintech expansion. And despite the region’s seemingly friendly fintech regulation ecosystem, it has been a massive hurdle Ziina has had to overcome, according to Toukan. Second to that would be finding the right banking partners. “You need to make a case to the banks that this is basically a mutually beneficial partnership. And the way we’ve done that is by basically highlighting different cases globally like CashApp that worked with Southern bank,” he said.

Now that the company has moved past those challenges and is in full swing to launch. Presently, Ziina has up to 1,000 users, which according to Toukan, transacted more than $120,000 in volume last month. The company also has 20,000 people on its waiting list to be onboarded after launch.

Ziina has already built a team with experience across tech companies like Apple, Uber, Stanford, Coinbase, Careem, Oracle, and Yandex. It plans to double down on hiring with this new investment and customer acquisition and establishing commercial partnerships.



Source link

Related posts

With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business – TechCrunch

With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused, cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR – TechCrunch

Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused, cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Previous Post

Pakistan train collision: 30 dead, 50 injured as passenger train derails and crashes into another | World News

Next Post

Nigeria's Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau dead, confirms ISWAP militant group | World News

Related Posts

With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business – TechCrunch
Technology

With Wickr purchase, AWS enters the encrypted messaging business – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused, cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR – TechCrunch
Technology

Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused, cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Kaszek Ventures leads a $15 million round in Chilean asset management startup, Fintual – TechCrunch
Technology

Kaszek Ventures leads a $15 million round in Chilean asset management startup, Fintual – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Kayak co-founder Paul English just launched Moonbeam, a podcast discovery app – TechCrunch
Technology

Kayak co-founder Paul English just launched Moonbeam, a podcast discovery app – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
Gotrade gets $7M led by LocalGlobe to let investors around the world buy fractional shares of U.S. stocks – TechCrunch
Technology

Gotrade gets $7M led by LocalGlobe to let investors around the world buy fractional shares of U.S. stocks – TechCrunch

June 25, 2021
To sustain diversity, investors must tune into their unconscious biases – TechCrunch
Technology

To sustain diversity, investors must tune into their unconscious biases – TechCrunch

June 24, 2021
Next Post
Nigeria’s Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau dead, confirms ISWAP militant group | World News

Nigeria's Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau dead, confirms ISWAP militant group | World News

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECOMMENDED NEWS

Kesari Chapter 2 teaser to be released on March 24; makers say, “Kuch ladaaiyan hathiyaaron se nahi ladi jaati” : Bollywood News

Kesari Chapter 2 teaser to be released on March 24; makers say, “Kuch ladaaiyan hathiyaaron se nahi ladi jaati” : Bollywood News

3 months ago
‘Right Now, I’m Leading’: Donald Trump On Another Debate With Kamala Harris | World News

‘Right Now, I’m Leading’: Donald Trump On Another Debate With Kamala Harris | World News

9 months ago
Ghaziabad assault video: Interim relief for Twitter India MD, Karnataka HC adjourns hearing till july 5 | Karnataka News

Ghaziabad assault video: Interim relief for Twitter India MD, Karnataka HC adjourns hearing till july 5 | Karnataka News

4 years ago
Centre will give 50% vaccines free to states, UTs: clarifies Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan | India News

Centre will give 50% vaccines free to states, UTs: clarifies Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan | India News

4 years ago

BROWSE BY CATEGORIES

  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fitness
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel

BROWSE BY TOPICS

Architecture culture Fitness indian architecture indian culture indian culture and heritage indian news lifestyle national news Technology technology news Travel travelling

About Us

Awaj Ludhiana Ki

Address

2667/3, Kishore Nagar, Tajpur & Jail Road, Ludhiana – 141008

Recent News

  • Indian Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla Set To Make History With Axiom-4 Mission On June 10 | India News
  • Trump Threatens Federal Action Over LA Unrest, California Governor Pushes Back – What Set Off Tensions? | World News
  • India-UK Ties Strengthen: PM Modi, UK Foreign Secy Discuss Bilateral Cooperation | India News
  • Chhal Kapat: The Deception trailer out: Shriya Pilgaonkar starrer Zee5 show to start streaming from June 6, watch : Bollywood News
  • Indian Navy Set To Induct First Anti-Submarine Shallow Water Warship ‘Arnala’ On June 18 | India News

Category

  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fitness
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel

Search

No Result
View All Result

Email

contact@awajludhianaki.org

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Careers

Copyright © 2019 Awaj Ludhiana Ki or it's affiliates | Website by Awaj Ludhiana Ki Team

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contact us
  • Animals
  • Architecture
  • Automobiles
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Fashion
  • Fitness
  • Food
  • International
  • Lifestyle
  • Movies
  • National
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • Punjab

Copyright © 2019 Awaj Ludhiana Ki or it's affiliates | Website by Awaj Ludhiana Ki Team

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In