Egyptian investments app Thndr nabs
The MENA region has about 400 million people who $500 billion in annual savings. But as a relatively young population, many have minimal equity market and investment exposure. the sort of is Egypt based Thndr. The company has raised a $20 million Series A round to democratize investing in the middle East and North Africa. And the uk, Up to half of the people invests in financial instruments. unfortunately, People in developing markets such as North Africa and the center East are underserved, With less than 3% actively wealth building in financial assets across the region.
A common reason for poor investment penetration in MENA is that opening a brokerage account is expensive. Thndr, launched in late 2020 by Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr, Is filling the gap by making it easier to open and manage investment accounts, Consequently replacing in the past slow and outdated processes by incumbents.
"The first investment decision that 75% of our users have done was with less than $500. devoid of Thndr, These people wouldn't even be able to open a brokerage account elsewhere as this is much less than the minimum account balances needed to open an account, Chief carrying out work officer Amr told TechCrunch over a call.
despite the titular "Robinhood for Egypt and the middle East, Thndr has had to be imaginative in its strategy based on four pillars, Said the entrepreneurs. The first is taking into cognizance that its users are not as financially literate as those in western world and educating them with simulators, content material material articles, music, Webinars, Podcasts and daily has to be the. the second reason is building a relevant and intuitive app; The third is making it easy to open an account online without visiting a branch. The last is a concept of an investment supermarket to meet the requirements of different investors. futures. They can only use the platform to get the Egyptian stock market and mutual funds. And foreign stocks as the best incentive to get users, Most of which are concerned with hedging their money against inflation and currency devaluation.
So how has Thndr were able to garner more than 300,000 downloads just useful local stocks? Amr infers that the users like the availableness and association with the brands they invest in and the ease of making investments on Thndr.
"A very critical pillar for us is the long term viability of what people are investing in, And this is in which we see in a lot of Egyptians, he was quoted saying.
"They see these kinds daily; they will use, Love and want to be perhaps the growth avenue of these brands. We see that from an understandability and an association perspective, Egyptians are inclined towards Egyptian products, He added an extra. stock option. truly, It's among several other reasons the YC backed investment company raised this round. offers, Thndr plans to introduce other foreign assets from local exchanges in the MENA region and is seeking to acquire a licence with one of the GCC's regulatory bodies, Following up on the brokerage licence it received in Egypt in 2020 the first issued in the wilderness since 2008.
"We're big on building a good investment supermarket. At the end through the day, What we want to build is that everyone in the Middle East, From his blackberry, Has access to several investment products, Whether they are cosmopolitan investment products or locally relevant investment products, spoken CEO Hammouda. Securities in your neighborhood,
regarding Thndr, Offering realtor fee free trading, No deposit or withdrawal charges and no account minimums allows users to trade often and hold their money in the future. which means that, It has turned to dues a model Robinhood introduced in 2016, Pivoting away from the commission fees it charged users to earn money. Other earning streams include revenue share agreements with asset managers running mutual funds and floats on idle cash sitting in customers' accounts.
Amr said Thndr's assets under custody grew 29 times in 2021 and further shared a few impressive metrics from send out two year run in Egypt.
in order to him, About 87% of [-censured-=https://www.dailymotion.com/CharmDate]charmdate scam[/-censured-] Thndr users invested at last through the platform; 40% of its users come from outside of Cairo and Alexandria rural areas with zero access to banks; And Thndr accounts for 36% of all new users in the local Egyptian exchanges in 2021.
Thndr has raised a total of $22 million in funding up to. The Series A investment will go toward developing the site and expanding its presence across MENA.
"The way we look at it, the center East and North Africa is a massive region. It's around 400 million population connected by one language with a very similar culture, Said the CEO about expanding into neighbouring countries instead of sub Saharan Africa where there's a bit of competition. "So we see a huge room for us to localize our product and service for this region. And and this is what we're focusing on right now,
Tiger globally, Dubai based early stage VC BECO Capital and Prosus Ventures co led the Series A investment. Alex help you make, an associate at Tiger Global, Said in an announcement, "We're excited to assist Ahmad, Seif, And the Thndr team as they make investing more available in Egypt and the MENA region. The market is lacking an affordable, simple to use platform for investing and saving, And we believe Thndr will deliver best in class customer experience as the working platform scales,
oddly enough, This round is Tiger Global's second investment in an African digital brokerage app in quick sequence. The indian hedge fund co led the round in Nigeria's Bamboo last month.
Tiger Global and Greycroft back Nigerian expenditure of money app Bamboo in $15M round
Other merchants in Thndr's Series A round include Base Capital, Firstminute and existing traders Endure Capital, 4DX undertakings, Raba partnerships and JIMCO.
away from the investors and to further plans for the company, Amr highlights the value of local Egyptian regulators in providing the licence, Which has allowed Thndr to scale.
"It says a lot that our local regulators are very intensifying, Open and accommodating to this change. Like from a angle, It's extremely important to catalyze growth. But from some other angle, It's also allowing us to capably attract cost savings which will spill over and be invested in the countries that we will serve,
before commencing Thndr, Both founders were property bankers and had stints at Uber; Hammouda as a general manager at Uber Egypt and Amr as an operations manager in Uber's office in Dubai.