In June 2021, Ziina, recent from finishing YC’s first cohort that yr and securing a $7.5 million seed, launched its fintech app to twenty,000 retail clients, permitting them to ship and obtain cash.
Three years later, the Dubai-based startup, which now counts 50,000 retail and enterprise clients after increasing its choices to fulfill the wants of micro, small, and medium-sized companies within the UAE, has netted $22 million in Series A funding led by Altos Ventures.
Indeed, 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 clients 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 components made Ziina notably thrilling to buyers. They embrace the quickly increasing SME phase within the UAE, its deal with product-led development, and its just lately acquired central financial institution license.
Expanding SME phase
Ziina originated as a peer-to-peer (P2P) fee app for splitting payments, comparable to for group journeys or lease. While the app gained traction with retail clients within the UAE, some who ran companies sought to make use of the digital pockets to ship and obtain funds, too, in line with Toukan.
In response, Ziina organically expanded its platform into two segments: Ziina Personal for splitting payments amongst pals and Ziina Business for amassing funds. The first enterprise function allowed customers to ship fee hyperlinks and receives a commission via Apple Pay, Google Pay, MasterCard and Visa.
As demand from companies elevated, Ziina developed extra merchandise for them: a fee 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. In addition to those options, Ziina added CRM capabilities so companies can observe buyer particulars and interactions.
The YC-backed startup continues to supply its P2P service, however 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 shoppers and companies for funds underneath one platform,” Toukan defined on the decision. “We have a look at the final expertise as shoppers will pay companies, companies will pay shoppers, after which construct that community impact throughout the 2 buyer segments. And that is without doubt one of the key differentiators now we have in our product technique and enterprise. So principally, all the pieces ought to be underneath one ecosystem the place folks have a financially trusted associate.”
Product-led development
From a product standpoint, Ziina says it addresses three essential ache factors for SMEs within the funds house: accessibility, value transparency, and person expertise.
Regarding accessibility, SMEs can use the fintech to open accounts and arrange a fee processor in minutes as a substitute of weeks.
In phrases of value, Ziina says it provides simple pricing with no hidden charges — 2.6% plus 1 AED (about US$ 0.25) for every fee hyperlink and POS transaction, and a pair of.9% plus 1 AED for every fee gateway transaction.
Lastly, clients have a dashboard to trace and reconcile on-line and offline funds and fee hyperlinks.
With Ziina’s fast development over the past yr, it now serves 50,000 lively customers, together with each retail and enterprise clients; its enterprise clients minimize throughout style and gaming to journey and tourism. Toukhan 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 via product-led efforts with no devoted gross sales crew. According to the chief government, 55% of its clients have come organically, whereas the remainder have come from B2B referrals.
However, because it continues to scale and supply extra monetary providers off the again of the banking license it acquired, that’ll seemingly change. The firm 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 Bank 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 clients preserve 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) provides 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 outdoors of purchase now, pay later; Telda provides P2P funds; and Mamo is within the spend administration enterprise.
Despite this competitors, the chief government, who based the fintech with Sarah Toukan and Andrew Gold, sees ample market potential for Ziina within the quickly rising funds sector for shoppers and companies throughout the MENA area.
“The Middle East appears to be rising fairly strongly, particularly relating to GDP development. And the UAE is without doubt one of the pioneers in that,” the CEO remarked. “If we at Ziina do our jobs appropriately, which we’re fairly enthusiastic about, we must always have the ability to have 200,000 month-to-month lively companies on the platform 4 years from now, given the rise of SMEs within the UAE. And when you have a look at gamers like Nubank in Brazil, they hit these targets of between 10 to twenty% market penetration. So we intend to do this and be the Nubank of the area.”
The Series A spherical additionally included participation from Activant Capital, Avenir Growth, Fintech Collective, FJ Labs, Jabba Internet Group, Middle East Venture Partners, and Y Combinator. This brings Ziina’s whole enterprise raised to over $30 million since its inception in 2020.
