Founded last year, Khazna aims to provide mobile financial services to over 20 million underbanked Egyptians who are active smartphone users but have little access to formal financial services.
In partnership with major banking and corporate partners, Khazna is launching products that provide alternatives to the informal market in Egypt. Its first offering is a salary cash advance product that is made available through Khazna’s corporate partners as a benefit to employees, helping individuals with limited access to credit to cover for unforeseen emergencies.
To help it scale this product and launch new ones, Khazna has now raised an undisclosed round of seed funding led by Algebra Ventures. The US$50 million Cairo-based venture capital fund has invested in 16 transformative technology companies in MENA, including HolidayMe, Trella, Elmenus, GoodsMart, and Halan.
Accion Venture Lab, Accion’s seed-stage inclusive fintech investment initiative, has also participated in the round, marking its first investment in Egypt.
“The investment will be used to advance our financial inclusion-focused products and use cases to reach the product-market fit stage by leveraging new technologies, data, and analytical tools to serve the underbanked in Egypt,” said Khazna’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Omar Saleh.
Algebra Ventures managing partner Tarek Assaad said a new wave of Egyptian fintech startups are attracting interest from local and international investors.
“We’re excited to be leading this round with Khazna. Omar is an exceptional entrepreneur and we believe that he and his team will grow Khazna to be one of the most transformative startups emerging from Egypt in the next few years,” he said.
