Fintech dopay Raises US$18 Million Series to scale in Egypt

Dopay, the B2B2C payments platform serving 1.7bn unbanked workers in emerging markets, has closed a US$ 18 million Series A funding round. Dopay meets a strong and growing demand from businesses for cashless payroll and from employees for access to digital banking and electronic payments. Worldwide, an estimated 200 million businesses still rely on cash payments while their workers have no access to bank accounts.

Force Over Mass Capital, FMO and NN Group led the round. Meanwhile, participating investors included Mbuyu Capital and Alder Tree Investments. Funding will be used to scale in Egypt, and also build a suite of financial services to top the company’s currently available cashless payroll and prepaid employee cards. The company also has plans to expand across the MENA region.

Through its virtual banking platform, dopay digitizes cash payments from employers to workers and other beneficiaries, directly addressing one of today’s largest fintech opportunities in emerging markets. The Series A funding round will enable dopay to continue scaling rapidly in its initial market, Egypt, while building a range of financial services in addition to cashless payroll and prepaid cards for employees. The round was led by Force Over Mass Capital, FMO and NN Group. Mbuyu Capital and Alder Tree Investments were also significant participants.

The dopay platform enables staff to be paid in real time, even during weekends and holidays. Each account provides a prepaid debit card, in partnership with Mastercard, enabling 24/7 access to funds via ATM withdrawal. Enrolled businesses benefit from a secure and cashless payroll, with simple-to-use interfaces and fully auditable transparency. Prepaid card users enjoy instant and secure access to banking facilities, no matter how much they earn. Dopay’s agent banking license, enabling the delivery of digital banking services and onboarding of employees and beneficiaries in seconds, puts dopay in a strong competitive position in Egypt’s salary payments space.

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.”

The company’s virtual banking platform helps to digitise cash payments from employers to workers. It recently received a banking license from Bank ABC Egypt last month. The company’s clients include Swvl, Landbank and McDonald’s.

Egypt has been moving towards a cashless economy in a bid to increase financial inclusion in the country. The statement noted that there was a “strong and growing demand” for cashless payroll, and digital banking and payments from businesses and employees.