When merchants or businesses launch online, they typically start by partnering with one or two payment processors. But as they grow and expand into new regions, they often need to bring on additional payment providers to meet different customer (and sometimes regulatory) needs — a process that comes with some hurdles.
This has led to companies that help manage the process in Egypt, such as MoneyHash, for merchants in the Middle East and Africa to handle complex payments more easily, has raised $5,2 million as it scales to target larger businesses. The pre-Series A comes about a year after its last funding, when it announced a $4,5 million seed round in February 2024. In total, MoneyHash has raised more than $12 million since Nader Abdelrazik y Mustafa Eid will launch the Egyptian fintech in early 2021.
The area MoneyHash works in is classically described as “payment orchestration,” and in the fragmented world of payments where a business can work with dozens of different providers to accept, make, and verify bank payments, its success has increased with the growth of online technology in the area. Integrating multiple payment stacks can be operationally inefficient and technically complex, often taking internal technical teams weeks to complete. These challenges are even more apparent in Africa and the Middle East due to the diverse payment methods and currencies. This is where payment orchestration platforms come in by aggregating and simplifying these payment processes across regions via APIs.
Abdelrazik and Eid founded MoneyHash after years of working in fintechs and enterprise software and witnessing some of these issues first-hand. Simply put, payments are (perhaps obviously) the crux of how a business operates, grows, and makes a profit. But all too often, expensive, high-risk bottlenecks occur, especially for smaller merchants: payment failure rates in the region are three times the global average, and cart abandonment is more than 20% higher than in developed markets. They saw orchestration as the solution: the way they think, merchants without payment orchestration platforms are at the mercy of high operating costs, revenue leakage, and will find it difficult to scale across regions.
“The opportunity to solve this is immense,” said CEO Abdelrazik. “In emerging markets, digital payments represent only a fraction of total transaction volume, suggesting huge growth potential over the next decade. We’ve built MoneyHash specifically to help merchants overcome these complex challenges and turn payments from a liability into a strategic advantage.”
MoneyHash integrates with a merchant’s payment providers to give their customers a streamlined way to work across that solution set. It offers features like a unified API for payment operations, customizable checkout, advanced transaction routing with fraud prevention, error rate optimization, and detailed reporting tools. The company also supports recurring payments, virtual wallets, subscription management, and payment links, offering an “all-in-one solution” for merchants.
Just as it has a16z-backed Payrails, Spreedly, Zooz, and Primer in the US, UK, and Europe, MoneyHash serves customers across the Middle East and Africa. Abdelrazik said that’s what sets MoneyHash apart: its focus on emerging markets and its extensive integration network, which includes more than 300 pre-integrated APIs (with local and international processors and gateways like Adyen, Amazon Pay, Checkout, Fawry, Mono, Stripe, Tabby, and ValU) covering more than 100 markets. Precium, a South African startup backed by QED, offers similar services in the region.
MoneyHash initially focused on small merchants but began targeting larger businesses in early 2024 with the launch of its enterprise suite, a move that has allowed the company to reach remarkable scale.
“Without us, there are still many performance improvements that can be achieved that will require years of work and study. But when you add our software, all payment performance metrics reach the highest possible level. We are talking about authorization, conversion and fraud rates. And we are quite comprehensive,” said CEO Abdelrazik.
“We are not focusing on one performance metric to try to solve all the problems throughout the entire payment lifecycle, which is what businesses need. Businesses don’t want to solve one problem. They will look for other problems. They want a comprehensive solution throughout the entire payment lifecycle, and that is what we do.”
Companies in industries such as consumer fintech, hospitality, e-commerce and gaming now account for 35% of MoneyHash’s clientele, which is set to triple by 2024. Key customers include BNPL unicorn Tamara, cloud kitchen leader Kitopi and e-commerce platform Brands For Less.
According to Tamara’s Head of Payments, MoneyHash stands out in the region for “building a significant point of difference,” likely referring to its claims of helping clients achieve a 10-20% increase in revenue generation while simultaneously reducing go-to-market and development costs by 90%.
Meanwhile, Abdelrazik credits his startup’s enterprise portfolio and long-term contracts that helped raise pre-Series A funding. He said these customers drove a 4x increase in processing volume and a 3x increase in revenue over the past year, though specific numbers are not yet disclosed.
Global fintech investor Flourish Ventures led the round. Other investors include Saudi Arabia’s Vision Ventures, Arab Bank’s Xelerate, and Emurp Kepple Ventures. The round also saw participation from Jason Gardner, founder and former CEO of Marqeta (its first check in the region), and existing investors Github founder Tom Preston-Werner and COTU Ventures.
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