UAE-based payments fintech Ziina has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round led by Altos Ventures, with participation from prominent investors such as Fintech Collective, FJ Labs, Avenir Growth, Y Combinator, and Jabbar Internet Group.
Founded in 2022 as a peer-to-peer payments app for bill splitting among friends, Ziina has transformed into a payment gateway catering to small businesses. The company now boasts 50,000 retail and business customers, achieving a tenfold increase in annual revenue and a 34% month-on-month growth in its customer base.
This latest financing round brings Ziina’s total funding to over $30 million. The company plans to utilize this new capital to pursue its goal of becoming a comprehensive financial services provider. The first initiative in this direction will be the introduction of the ZiiCard, currently under development, which aims to simplify supplier payments and improve expense management for business users. Individual users will enjoy features such as expense categorization and the ability to split payments on purchases.
Notably, Ziina is the first venture-backed startup to obtain a stored value facility (SVF) license from the Central Bank of the UAE, enabling it to offer a wider range of financial products and generate revenue from customer assets retained on its platform.
Faisal Toukan, CEO and co-founder of Ziina, stated, “Ziina is positioned at the intersection of three key pillars: strong customer demand from the underserved SME sector, our receipt of the SVF license from the Central Bank of the UAE, and the substantial funding secured from top-tier investors with whom we are excited to partner long-term.
“This combination positions Ziina uniquely to drive the next evolution of fintech in the UAE and beyond. This funding will expedite our transition from a payment platform to an end-to-end financial services provider, enhancing our offerings and expanding our reach across the Middle East.”