In this regard, Ahmad Hammouda, co-founder and chief executive officer at Thndr, told the media, “At Thndr we believe that everyone should have access to financial services and products that can make your money work for you. All taking you a bit closer to the ultimate goal of financial freedom. That’s why we’re excited to introduce our second investment product—Mutual Funds.”

Called AZ Savings, it will be available on the Thndr app and is an open-ended private placement fund. The fund is for investments that are mostly in near-term fixed income instruments. It is reported that the investment is considered a low-risk and liquid investment instrument and enables users to invest in the fund daily and redeem from it weekly.

Last year, Thndr also became the first Egyptian company to receive a brokerage licence from Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority since 2008. Established in 2020, Thndr participated in the Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator.

Back then, Ahmad Hammouda told the media, “Our vision is to put wealth in the hands of everyday individuals. With the rise of technology, and the foresight of a very supportive Financial Regulatory Authority, we can make this vision come to life — Egypt is expected to be the 7th largest economy by 2030 and has more than 100 million people, most of which are young and are looking for a convenient and digital way to invest their money. That’s why we are excited to bring a new breed of young investors to the market.”

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The funding round for Khazna was led by Algebra Capitals, which has invested in around 16 technology companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Some of the companies that Algebra Capitals have invested in include HolidayMe, Trella, Elmenus, GoodsMart, and Halan.

Accion Venture Lab, Accion’s seed-stage fund that recently closed $33 million in fresh funds also participated in the round.

Khazna will use the funding to bring its services to around 20 million Egyptians who have access to a mobile phone but have little or no access to financial services in the country.

Omar Saleh, Khazna’s co-founder and chief executive officer, told the media, “Khazna is focused on bringing customer-centric services to over 20 million active smartphone users in Egypt who lack access to formal banking and financial services. This wouldn’t have been possible without the significant momentum created by the Central Bank of Egypt towards digitisation and financial inclusion.”

He added, “The investment will be used to advance our financial inclusion-focused products and used cases to reach the product-market fit stage by leveraging new technologies, data, and analytical tools to serve the underbanked in Egypt.”

Khazna was founded by Omar Saleh, Ahmed Wagueeh and Fatimah El Shenawy in 2019. Its first product in the market will be called Khazna HR, a salary cash advance app that allows partnered businesses to offer cash advance to their employees as a benefit and help them to cover for unforeseen emergencies.

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2019 turned out to be a significant year for African tech startups as funding grew by 47 percent when compared to 2018. Also, the number of startups has increased by 50 percent during the same period.

The African Tech Startups Funding Report 2019 revealed that a total of 311 startups amassed $491.6 million last year.

2019 also witnessed a 61 percent increase in the number of investors in Africa. As of 2019, there were 261 different investors in Africa funding different tech startups across Africa.

Kenya has emerged as a leading market when it comes to attracting investments. Tech startups in Kenya alone secured $149 million in funding last year. Kenya is followed by Nigeria which secured $122 million last year.

In recent years, the technology space in Egypt has substantially grown. In 2019, around 88 tech startups have raised funds from investors in the continent.

Surprisingly, South Africa is ranked at fourth when it comes to funds secured and also the number of tech startups.
This indicates that investors are looking beyond South Africa and searching for investment opportunities in emerging markets.

The fintech sector continued to attract most of the African investors. According to the African Tech Startups Funding Report 2019, 77 fintech startups raised around $107 million in funding in 2019.

Last year, Nigeria established itself as the African capital for fintech investment and digital finance startups. Nigeria seemed to have toppled Kenya which earlier held the top spot due to its mobile money revolution which was led by M-Pesa.

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