Telda, Egypt-based Fintech Startup Raises $20M in Seed Funding to Expand

Telda, an Egyptian fintech startup has raised $20 million in a Global Founders Capital-led seed funding round with participation from Silicon Valley’s Sequoia Capital and former Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc., previously known as Square Inc. to expand into new markets as well as grow its product offering.

Ahmed Sabbah, who also co-founded Swvl Holdings Corp., the first African company to list on the Nasdaq through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, co-founded Telda last year in Cairo with Youssef Sholqamy, a former Uber Technologies Inc. engineer.

The startup received final approval from The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) in July this year and launched its app and a Mastercard-powered card to the public last month. Since then, it has onboarded 25,000 cards and has a waiting list of 110,000 customers who have ordered their cards through the app.

Just months after its launch, Telda raised $5 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Global Founders Capital and Class 5 Global.

Speaking on the need the startup hopes to satisfy, Youssef Sholqamy, Telda’s co-founder said “In Egypt dealing with money is still a complicated matter; making it easy and straightforward will have a large impact not just on the economy but also the society as a whole.”

Also commenting on the investment, Roel Janssen, a partner at the lead investor, Global Founders Capital, said, “We are incredibly excited to further strengthen our partnership with Telda. The company has launched a product that is better than most international consumer payments companies, and Ahmed and Youssef have attracted some of the brightest Egyptian talents in the product, engineering, and GTM. We are confident that Telda will continue to amaze Egyptian customers with an outstanding product experience and exceptional service in the coming years.”