EGYPT – Fawry, a provider of e- payments solutions and digital banking services, has announced that it has finalized an investment in alsoug.com, Sudan’s largest online classifieds platform and marketplace, to help build out alsoug’s new fintech platform, Cashi.
Fawry has acquired a strategic minority stake in the alsoug.com/Cashi holding company, marking the Company’s first venture capital investment outside of its Egyptian home market.
The investment comes as part of Sudan’s first announced venture capital funding round.
Fawry played a leading role in ensuring the success of the US$5 million round, with the Company’s presence catalyzing involvement from other strategic Western VC players.
“We’re delighted to be kicking off our partnership with alsoug, one of Sudan’s most exciting prospects and a Sudanese leader in tech innovation,” Fawry CEO Eng. Ashraf Sabry said.
“This is our first investment foray outside of Egypt in our thirteen years of operation, and we’re confident that our story with alsoug and Cashi will be a special one.
“Fawry’s investment in alsoug delivers on our plans to venture into underserved international markets by leveraging our technology and teaming up with strong local players.”
As a strategic investor in alsoug, Fawry intends to leverage its long track record with white label technology solutions to help the platform expand in scale, enhancing the platform’s merchant acquisition operation, refining its go-to-market approach, and providing valuable insights that inform high-level strategy across all segments of the business.
“This investment will provide us the opportunity to strategically expand our footprint into Africa and transfer the experience we’ve gained in the dynamic Egyptian market to neighboring Sudan, an economy with major potential across several sectors and with a significant pool of entrepreneurial talent,” Sabry added.
“Meanwhile, Fawry’s strategic partnership with alsoug leaves it ideally placed to help guide the platform’s rollout of a countrywide payments system, a feat which Fawry has already managed through a scalable, robust, and best-in-class technology platform.”
Founded in 2016 by a world-class team of technology entrepreneurs, alsoug is now Sudan’s leading consumer internet platform and its largest digital marketplace.
Alsoug is one of Sudan’s most downloaded apps on the Google Play app store with two million downloads and is a platform where sellers can list everything from real estate and cars to services and commodities.
“This investment marks a significant milestone not just for alsoug, but for the nascent tech space in Sudan as a whole, which has until today been essentially shut out of the global capital markets,” Alsoug co-founder and CEO Tarneem (Nina) Saeed made the following said.
“I hope this investment is the first of many and that the huge potential of the tech sector in Sudan is fully realized in the coming years.
“We are looking forward to working with Fawry, and our new strategic shareholders, to continue our expansion from the classifieds and marketplace space into payments. We will build a payments platform that will deliver financial inclusion to all Sudanese.”
Fawry and Uber
Meanwhile, Fawry and Uber have expanded their partnership to introduce E-payments through the myfawry app, in addition to 230,000 locations across the country, to make it easier for Uber users to recharge their Uber cash wallets with any amount to their account from any of Fawry’s different channels.
This cooperation between Fawry and Uber led to the easiness of using “FawryPay,” a payment gateway in Egypt that allows customers to recharge their Uber wallets through Fawry’s various locations that include retailers, FawryPlus stores, myfawry App and through Meeza cards. FawryPay is currently available on most of the banking wallets, like NBE and Bank Misr. As well as operator wallets that include Orange, Vodafone, and Etisalat.
This agreement between Fawry and Uber facilitates payments for riders and limits cash transactions, making it in line with the initiatives of the Egyptian government and the Central Bank of Egypt to prioritise financial inclusion and digital transformation.
This directive also helped in serving the strategies for the Egyptian government’s 2030 vision to enhance the gate of ‘digital Egypt’ and connect it with various e-payment solutions.
Both companies aim to support riders using the Uber app by changing their habits by choosing a smart, safe, and widely accepted payment options in the form of electronic payments as an alternative to cash transactions.
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