Dubai based fintech startup Mamo raises $8M Pre-Series A funding for its digital wallet and payments platform

Mamo, a Dubai-based FinTech startup founded to remove barriers associated with banking in the MENA region, announced it has closed an $8 million Pre-Series A funding. The round was led by Global Ventures, along with the participation of 4DX Ventures, AlRajhi Partners, Olive Tree Capital, and prominent Fintech-focused Silicon Valley investors.

Mamo will use the funding proceeds to develop its FinTech’s service offerings, increasing utility for its customers, and enhancing its Mamo Business product, and further expanding growth in the UAE and Saudi market, coupled with strategic new hires to support its expansion.

The Dubai, United Arab Emirates-based Mamo was founded in 2016 by Asim Janjua, Imad Gharazeddine, and Mohammad El Saadi, three former Google employees with extensive experience in product design, engineering, marketing, operations, and business development. Mamo provides a payments application intended to make money transfers accessible. It allows connecting bank account to its application and enables users to send money quickly and securely to friends and family.

Today, the Mamo team has 12 employees from 10 different nationalities with professional backgrounds from McKinsey and Careem. Some of their advisors include the former GM of Paypal-owned Venmo, Amit Jhawar.

Mamo’s digital wallet and payments platform includes peer-to-peer payments enabling its users to send and receive payments from anyone in the UAE with a few taps and zero fees. Their vision is to not only increase the speed of transactions but also remove barriers associated with banking in the MENA region while providing financial independence to those that have been excluded from traditional financial systems.

Its platform also allows users to send and receive payments through their smartphone instantly, securely, and free of charge. Their recently launched service, Mamo Business is a testament to this, which allows freelancers and small businesses to receive online payments from their customers, without the burden of an expensive and complex gateway and merchant integrations. Registration on the platform typically takes a single day, which is an enormous improvement over the industry standard of two to three months – a lifeline for small businesses given the current global situation.

Commenting on the funding, Mohammad El Saadi, the co-founder at Mamo, said: “This fundraising is a testament to Mamo’s performance in the region and reflects our ambition to be the leader within the payments space. We believe that accepting and making payments should be much simpler than it is today, for everyone. Through Mamo, we will support the UAE and MENA in its transition to a digital economy.”

He added, “At Mamo, we want to lead and drive financial independence and inclusion across the greater MENA region. At the core of it, money is a medium of social exchange and we are building the fabric to connect every member of this society together from the well-banked to the unbanked – from small business owners to freelancers and beyond. I’m thrilled to bring our human-first and customer-centric approach to residents and businesses alike in the UAE, while we prepare for our launch in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Basil Moftah, General Partner at Global Ventures, said: “It is exciting to see Mamo’s growth and even more so, to be a part of their journey. The regional FinTech space is booming because of innovators like Mamo who are empowering customers and businesses alike, by revolutionizing the ways they traditionally deliver and consume financial services. The start-up is setting the tone for a thriving and innovation-driven financial ecosystem in MENA.”