In June 2021, Ziina, contemporary from finishing YC’s first cohort that yr and securing a $7.5 million seed, launched its fintech app to twenty,000 retail prospects, permitting them to ship and obtain cash.
Three years later, the Dubai-based startup, which now counts 50,000 retail and enterprise prospects byafter increasing its choices to satisfy the wants of micro, small, and medium-sized companies within the UAE, has netted $22 million in Sequence A funding led by Altos Ventures.
Certainly, such sizable follow-on funding regardless of the worldwide funding slowdown underscores buyers’ confidence within the fintech firm’s development — the corporate claims 34% month-over-month development in prospects for the final yr, and says its revenues have elevated ten-fold over the identical interval.
Co-founder and CEO Faisal Toukan advised TechCrunch that three elements made Ziina significantly thrilling to buyers. They embrace the quickly increasing SME section within the UAE, its give attention to product-led development, and its not too long ago acquired central financial institution license.
Increasing SME section
Ziina originated as a peer-to-peer (P2P) cost app for splitting payments, resembling for group journeys or lease. Whereas the app gained traction with retail prospects within the UAE, some who ran companies sought to make use of the digital pockets to ship and obtain funds, too, in response to Toukan.
In response, Ziina organically expanded its platform into two segments: Ziina Private for splitting payments amongst associates and Ziina Enterprise for accumulating funds. The primary enterprise characteristic allowed customers to ship cost hyperlinks and receives a commission by Apple Pay, Google Pay, MasterCard and Visa.
As demand from companies elevated, Ziina developed extra merchandise for them: a cost gateway (checkout) built-in with platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify for on-line funds, point-of-sale (POS) options for in-person funds utilizing QR codes, and funds through social media. Along with these options, Ziina added CRM capabilities so companies can observe buyer particulars and interactions.
The YC-backed startup continues to supply its P2P service, nevertheless it’s clear why most of its product focus is now on small companies. The startup targets an underserved market of 560,000 SMEs within the UAE, which account for over 94% of all corporations and contribute about 60% of the nation’s GDP. As of 2023, round 77% of SMEs within the UAE had adopted digital funds, fueling the rising demand for monetary administration instruments.
“We’re an all-in-one platform for companies to receives a commission within the UAE, having developed from being purely a client app to an ecosystem that connects customers and companies for funds beneath one platform,” Toukan defined on the decision. “We take a look at the overall expertise as customers will pay companies, companies will pay customers, after which construct that community impact throughout the 2 buyer segments. And that is without doubt one of the key differentiators we have now in our product technique and enterprise. So mainly, every thing ought to be beneath one ecosystem the place folks have a financially trusted associate.”
Product-led development
From a product standpoint, Ziina says it addresses three crucial ache factors for SMEs within the funds house: accessibility, price transparency, and consumer expertise.
Concerning accessibility, SMEs can use the fintech to open accounts and arrange a cost processor in minutes as an alternative of weeks.
By way of price, Ziina says it presents easy pricing with no hidden charges — 2.6% plus 1 AED (about US$ 0.25) for every cost hyperlink and POS transaction, and a pair of.9% plus 1 AED for every cost gateway transaction.
Lastly, prospects have a dashboard to trace and reconcile on-line and offline funds and cost hyperlinks.
With Ziina’s fast development during the last yr, it now serves 50,000 energetic customers, together with each retail and enterprise prospects; its enterprise prospects minimize throughout style and gaming to journey and tourism. Toukan additionally tells TechCrunch that the startup now processes about 1,050 dirhams ($280) each 60 seconds and is on observe to deal with 1.1 billion dirhams (~$300 million) in annualized transaction quantity, up from 550 million dirhams (~$150 million) final yr.
Ziina’s development has come primarily by product-led efforts and not using a devoted gross sales group. In response to the chief govt, 55% of its prospects have come organically, whereas the remaining have come from B2B referrals.
Nevertheless, because it continues to scale and supply extra monetary providers off the again of the banking license it acquired, that’ll probably change. The corporate is onboarding its first gross sales hires, together with some from Revolut.
Ziina claims to be the primary venture-backed startup with the saved worth facility (SVF) license from the Central Financial institution of the UAE. This permits the fintech to supply extra monetary options – excluding lending, which requires a separate license – and earn income from the float when prospects maintain property on the platform, for instance.
Toukan believes that this license and monetary ecosystem of merchandise (the fintech is venturing into expense administration quickly with the launch of its card product, ZiiCard) offers Ziina an edge over different regional fintechs that present overlapping monetary providers. Paymob, as an illustration, gives POS terminals; Tabby is rising its monetary choices exterior of purchase now, pay later; Telda presents P2P funds; and Mamo is within the spend administration enterprise.
Regardless of this competitors, the chief govt, who based the fintech with Sarah Toukan and Andrew Gold, sees ample market potential for Ziina within the quickly rising funds sector for customers and companies throughout the MENA area.
“The Center East appears to be rising fairly strongly, particularly concerning GDP development. And the UAE is without doubt one of the pioneers in that,” the CEO remarked. “If we at Ziina do our jobs accurately, which we’re fairly enthusiastic about, we must always have the ability to have 200,000 month-to-month energetic companies on the platform 4 years from now, given the rise of SMEs within the UAE. And for those who take a look at gamers like Nubank in Brazil, they hit these targets of between 10 to twenty% market penetration. So we intend to try this and be the Nubank of the area.”
The Sequence A spherical additionally included participation from Activant Capital, Avenir Progress, Fintech Collective, FJ Labs, Jabbar Web Group, Center East Enterprise Companions, and Y Combinator. This brings Ziina’s complete enterprise raised to over $30 million since its inception in 2020.
