Flash, an Egypt-based fintech company that specializes in cashless payments, has successfully completed a seed funding round raising a total of $6 million led by the VC firm, Addition, according to local reports.
During the seed funding round, Flourish Ventures, along with other strategic angel investors, participated as investors. The investment is expected to play a significant role in helping the startup expedite its product development efforts and strengthen its customer and business acquisition strategies within the Egyptian market.
With recent approval from the Central Bank of Egypt to function as a technical payment aggregator, Flash has established itself as a legitimate and regulated player in the fintech industry. The company’s innovative platform enables customers to make purchases using their smartphones.
By simply adding any existing bank card or digital wallet to the app, customers can seamlessly complete transactions by scanning a QR code provided by the business, either in-store or during delivery.
“We’re eliminating the need for cash or carrying cards for our consumers and the POS machine on the merchant side,” said Erik Gordon, Flash Co-Founder and CEO.
“With QR codes, businesses don’t have to worry about integration, setup and maintenance fees, and it’s low tech, so anyone with a camera on their phone can pay that way.”
Gordon formerly worked at Uber as Head of Marketplace for Egypt where he noted that 90% of payments were made in cash, which ‘turned into piles of money being counted in warehouses, which led to fraud and theft.’
Founded in 2021, Flash operates its fintech services in collaboration with Banque Misr, an Egyptian bank.
According to Co-Founder, Sherrine Kabesh, the approval from Egypt’s apex bank and Banque Misr partnership provides them with the necessary foundation to develop and introduce new products, diversify their digital payment portfolio, and expand their services in the fintech space.
Flash’s main customers are e-Commerce platforms and businesses whose payment methods include cash-on-delivery pharmacies, restaurants, fast-food chains and grocery shops. These businesses lack the necessary POS tools to allow customers to pay for their goods through Cash-on-Delivery, which is the preferred payment method for online purchases in Egypt, as per a Techcrunch report.
‘Flash on Delivery’ allows these businesses to present a QR code to customers which can be scanned at the point of collection.
Flash aims to serve over 100 businesses in the next 12 months with some of its current business customers being Homzmart and Rabbit Mart.
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