Ziina, the UAE’s first Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payment application, which is backed by Y-Combinator (YC), announced its latest funding round of $7.5 million. The round which closed in May 2021 will help the company launch its new wallet service and fuel its expansion into Saudi Arabia.
Ziina’s latest seed round is led by Avenir Growth Capital and Class 5 Global with participation from Wamda, FJ Labs, Graph Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Jabbar Internet Group and Oman Technology Fund’s Jasoor Ventures. The round also includes Zinal Growth, the investment fund of Guillaume Pousaz, CEO of Checkout.com; Krishnan Menon, the CEO of Bukukas; as well as executives from Paypal and Venmo. This adds to a roster of fintech operators from Revolut, Stripe, Brex, Notion, and Deel that joined Ziina’s previous round.
Ziina plans on using the proceeds to launch its highly anticipated wallet application with over 20,000 verified users on the waiting list.
Ziina new round gathers US investors, regional investors, and global fintech founders. The firms’ new partners have invested in the most promising global fintechs. Avenir’s latest rounds include US Digital Bank, Current, and Africa’s largest fintech, Flutterwave. Goodwater Capital are key investors in Toss, Korea’s largest digital wallet. FJ Lab’s prior investments include Ant Financial and Graph Ventures investments include Robinhood and Wealthfront.
Founded in 2020 by Faisal Toukan, Sarah Toukan, and Andrew Gold, Ziina is the latest addition to the Middle East’s fintech ecosystem and is capitalising on the region’s rapid adoption of fintech friendly regulation. Ziina offers its users in the UAE simplified P2P payment services, with plans to expand to Saudi Arabia and Jordan by 2022. Its mission is to simplify finance for the Middle East.
