Dopay, an Egyptian fintech startup, has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by UK venture capital firm Force Over Mass Capital, FMO, and NN Group. Mbuyu Capital, an African investment, and Alder Tree Investments, a Nordic fund, also took part in the round.

Dopay was launched in June 2014 with the goal of accelerating financial inclusion in Egypt by providing payroll services and prepaid cards to the unbanked. McDonalds, Swvl, Barclays-Egypt, and Bank ABC are among the firm’s clients, and it got an agent banking license from Egypt’s Central Bank last month.

The startup will be able to expand its existing company in Egypt thanks to the Series A fundraising round. It will also enable the fintech startup in building a range of financial services in addition to cashless payroll and employee prepaid cards.

Staff can be paid in real time using the Dopay platform, even on weekends and holidays. In collaboration with Mastercard, each account comes with a prepaid debit card that allows you to withdraw money from an ATM at any time. Enrolled businesses enjoy a secure, cashless payroll system with easy-to-use interfaces and comprehensive auditability. Prepaid cardholders have immediate and secure access to banking services, regardless of their income. Dopay’s agent banking license, which allows it to supply digital banking services and onboard employees and beneficiaries in seconds, gives it a competitive advantage in Egypt’s salary payments market.

Wouter Volckaert, Chief Investment Officer, Force Over Mass Capital, said, “Egypt has around 2.4 million individual businesses and 104 million people, some 67% of whom do not have a bank account, while 94% have no access to credit. The dopay business model engages with business owners in the first instance, meaning they don’t have to attract individual customers. Each company signing up with dopay brings an entire workforce in a single transaction, and this is a very strong growth driver. Their new platform provides frictionless onboarding for employees, while enabling dopay to scale their business at pace.”

Frans van Eersel, Founder and CEO of dopay, said, “The value of our Series A funding confirms the investment community’s confidence in the dopay offer. Our commercial validity through our B2B2C model is clear, and our technology capability is proven and strong. Egypt is the biggest market in the MENA region. We will serve a rapidly growing number of Egyptian businesses, from SMEs to major corporations, and their employees. Our dopay leadership is world class, with successful creators of billion-dollar payments businesses on the Board. We are ready to aggressively grow our solutions, leveraging up- and cross-selling opportunities, as we increase dopay’s range of services and partners across MENA.”

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