Close Menu
    What's Hot

    Ghana’s Liquify – Accelerating Trade Finance for Africa’s SME Exporters

    June 20, 2025

    Winich Farms Secures Investment from DisrupTech to Scale Agri-Fintech Operations

    June 18, 2025

    Ibukun Awosika to Hold African Marketplace Dubai

    June 16, 2025
    Gulf Africa ReviewGulf Africa Review
    • Industry
    • Infrastructure
      1. Airport
      2. Hospitality
      3. Ports
      4. Power
      5. Rail
      6. Roads
      7. Transport
      Featured

      Osun seeks to capitalise on infrastructure momentum

      Infrastructure May 21, 2018
      Recent

      Salpha Energy Secures $1.3M to Expand Nigeria’s Solar Manufacturing Capacity

      June 6, 2025

      South Africa – Infrastructure Overhaul Set to Boost Transport and Trade

      May 16, 2025

      Navigating Challenges in the African Air Cargo Industry

      March 5, 2025
    • Business & Trade
      1. Agri-Business
      2. Entrepreneurship
      3. FDI
      4. Legislative
      5. MEA
      6. Telecoms
      7. Properties
      Featured

      Analysts predict bullish future for Nigeria’s REITs market

      Business Business & Trade January 21, 2018
      Recent

      Ghana’s Liquify – Accelerating Trade Finance for Africa’s SME Exporters

      June 20, 2025

      Ibukun Awosika to Hold African Marketplace Dubai

      June 16, 2025

      Egypt’s Paysky Unveils “Pay by Bank” to Transform Digital Payments

      June 11, 2025
    • Finance
      1. Banking
      2. Islamic finance
      Featured

      DP World and Nedbank Elevate Trade Finance in Africa

      Finance Trade September 18, 2024
      Recent

      DP World and Nedbank Elevate Trade Finance in Africa

      September 18, 2024

      Arab Coordination Group commits $50 billion for Africa’s sustainable development

      November 13, 2023

      MENAT to see investment flows increase substantially

      September 4, 2023
    • Innovation
    Gulf Africa ReviewGulf Africa Review
    Finance

    Money Fellows raises USD 31 million in funding

    November 1, 20224 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Money Fellows
    Money Fellows CEO Ahmed Wadi.
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Money Fellows, an Egyptian fintech, raises USD 31 million as it digitizes money circles, where individuals form savings and borrowing groups.

    Money Fellows, an Egyptian fintech that digitizes money circles, has raised USD 31 million from a wide range of investors, including CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) and Arzan Venture Capital. Other participating investors included Partech, Sawari Ventures, Invenfin, National Investment Company (NIC), 4DX Ventures and P1 Ventures.

    Money circles

    Money Fellows aims to digitize money circles, more commonly known as Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCAs), a temporary system whereby a group of people agree to pool their resources for a set time and then save and borrow together. ROSCAs work when a group of people come together and agree to pay a monthly amount for a set period of time. Every month, one member gets the total amount paid out to them and this keeps going until all the members are paid.

    ROSCAs, according to CEO Ahmed Wadi, represent a USD 700 billion opportunity, globally. The concept is proving popular in developing markets and are known as Esusu or ajo in Nigeria, Kameti or chit fund in India and Gameya in Egypt.

    “People looking to borrow can find slots on our platform. People are looking to save, too. So if you are a slot number one, you’re a pure borrower, so we charge a fee. If you’re a slot number two, we charge you slightly less. It decreases the more you’re willing to wait until the end of that ROSCA, where we incentivize the users with one of the most attractive saving incentives in the country,” says Wadi.

    Money Fellows charges a one-time service fee of approximately 6% to users who choose its early spots and the fee decreases over time and turns into incentivized interest paid to users at the end of the cycle.

    After trialing the system in Europe and the UK, Wadi decided to bring his concept home to Egypt, launching his platform in 2018.

    Traditional risks

    The risks are obvious when dealing with strangers and so ROSCAs tend to exist among friends or family groups. This limits traditional ROSCAs as participants may find it difficult to access more capital. Money Fellows, aims to create a broader pool of participants — each having been thoroughly assessed before entering — across Egypt. Selected participants can then form and join ROSCA groups through the company’s app.

    Money Fellows: Addressing risk

    Money Fellows’ system has built-in provisioning and reserve requirements that ensure that customers get paid even when other participants fail to hit their targets. According to Wadi, Money Fellows creates reserves for every ROSCA launched and covers any defaults from those funds.

    “The good thing with ROSCAs versus consumer finance is that not everyone has equal credit exposure. So if you’re slot number five, for instance, when you get USD 10,000, you only need to repay USD 5,000 because you historically paid USD 500 in the past five months,” he says. “That’s why we’re more conservative. We don’t limit people to only amounts. We also restrict them to specific slots because we know which slots carry more or less risk.”

    Money Fellows: B2B

    Money Fellows also has a B2B offering for Egyptian merchants, allowing them to sell their products through the app at discounted rates. The company takes a commission, which supplements the fees generated by the ROSCA system. The plans are to offer further services such as Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), pensions and cards.

    The company currently has over 4.5 million registered users, with approximately 7% of those being active, monthly users and claims to have experienced 8x year-on-year growth. According to Wadi, the average payout ticket per user is approximately USD 1,100.

    BNPL services are becoming increasingly popular across the MENA region and Africa as a whole, with valU recently partnering with Sylndr and Endure Capital making acquisitions in the sector.

    Egypt investment Money Circles Money Fellows Startups
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleAgrarius lists Africa’s first Shari’ah-compliant sustainability-linked Sukuk
    Next Article Shoprite Group invests in tech start-up

    Related Posts

    Agri-Business

    Winich Farms Secures Investment from DisrupTech to Scale Agri-Fintech Operations

    June 18, 2025
    Energy Infrastructure Power

    Salpha Energy Secures $1.3M to Expand Nigeria’s Solar Manufacturing Capacity

    June 6, 2025
    Innovation Logistics Startups Trade

    Turuq Innovations: Transforming Egypt’s Last-Mile Delivery for Small Businesses

    June 4, 2025
    View 5 Comments

    5 Comments

    1. Pingback: MENA startups: October sees notable deals in Egypt, Saudi and the UAE

    2. Pingback: Payhippo acquires Maritime Microfinance Bank

    3. Pingback: MENA startups raised USD 646 million in October

    4. Pingback: Blnk raises USD 32 million in funding

    5. Pingback: Cellulant and Solv Kenya sign financial services partnership

    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    LATEST STORIES

    Ghana’s Liquify – Accelerating Trade Finance for Africa’s SME Exporters

    June 20, 2025

    Winich Farms Secures Investment from DisrupTech to Scale Agri-Fintech Operations

    June 18, 2025

    Ibukun Awosika to Hold African Marketplace Dubai

    June 16, 2025

    China to Drop Tariffs on African Exports

    June 13, 2025

    Egypt’s Paysky Unveils “Pay by Bank” to Transform Digital Payments

    June 11, 2025
    • Business
      • Agri-Business
      • Entrepreneurship
      • FDI
      • Legislative
      • MEA
      • Properties
      • Telecoms
    • Infrastructure
      • Airport
      • Hospitality
      • Ports
      • Power
      • Rail
      • Roads
      • Transport
    • Finance
      • Banking
      • Islamic finance
    • Commodities
      • Agri commodities
      • Metals & minerals
      • Precious metals
    • Culture & Society
      • Education
      • Energy
    GAR logo
    © GulfAfricaReview.com 2014-2022, All Rights Reserved.

    Gulf Africa Review is a trade news and future networking platform for businesses leaders and trade organisations, established to first inform and secondly assist in facilitating the ongoing business and trade relations between the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Sub-Saharan Africa. We aim to provide an apolitical voice for this channel of economic activity in a way that benefits both geographies by improving the availability of information about market events, developments and opportunities, while publicising the successes achieved by this ever-broadening regional relationship.

      Subscribe to our newsletter

      Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.