SimpliFi, a Dubai-based financial technology start-up, secured $5.1 million in new funding that it plans to use to expand across the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan region. The cards-as-a-service platform, which also has an office in Riyadh, raised the investment from Saudi-based Raed Ventures and US-based Global Founders Capital, 4DX Ventures and Rally Cap Ventures. Raed and Rally Cap had participated in a seed round earlier this year, which raised an undisclosed amount. The start-up manages all ecosystem partners required to issue cards including banks, card schemes, processors, identity verification, card fulfilment and customer care to deliver a seamless experience across several markets.
Start-ups in the region continue to attract investments, with the fourth quarter of 2021 particularly busy, especially for transactions involving the UAE sphere. Abu Dhabi Global Market and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation launched a programme to support women-led Mena start-ups, while Indian cloud services provider G7CR Technologies announced plans to invest up to $30m to support MEA and India start-ups. Aldar, the UAE’s biggest listed property company, launched the second cycle of its Scale Up accelerator programme, while technology company Google is currently underway with the third edition of its initiative to help budding companies speed up their development. Mena start-ups received $1.2bn in funding during the first half of 2021, surpassing the amount raised in the whole of 2020. The company’s team is backed by people with experience from ride-hailing services Careem, Grab, Gojek and Uber, payments companies PayPal, Marqeta, Mastercard and Network International, and Facebook.