OUR FOUNDER OF THE WEEK – Ahmed Wadi, founder and CEO of MoneyFellows (LinkedIn).

My name is Ahmed Wadi, and I’m the CEO and founder of MoneyFellows.

The idea of MoneyFellows came to me back in 2016, when I was in Germany and trying to save money and get access to credit. This wasn’t easy as I wasn’t born in Germany and I struggled to find ROSCAs (rotating savings and credit associations). This made me think: Why can't I modernize and digitize this very ancient and traditional money saving model that I’ve always seen back home — gameya — and give people all around the world the chance to partake in ROSCAs together.

ROSCAs have always been an alternative solution. More people are relying on gameyat and ROSCAs informally to reach their financial goals and needs versus those who actually do it formally through financial institutions. It’s a huge market, providing a very big opportunity. ROSCAs are more social, more culturally favorable, and more affordable to many.

The model has been there for hundreds of years and it hasn't died yet. It's still just as common years after the formation of the modern financial system. I think this is where the opportunity comes in, especially if we modernize it and ensure this model is done in a more efficient, more scalable, and more secure way.

We care about acquiring customers but we care more about retaining them. We do this through things like tracking their NPS, doing the right surveys and ensuring payout on time.

We want to ask less and grant more while ensuring that we’re also granting people the right limits. Using MoneyFellows is becoming significantly more seamless: the app now sets its new users’ credit limit based on the mobile they own and where they live. The app acquires this information either from questions the user answers or fetching the data directly from the user.

Building credibility takes a lot of time but I think we're doing a very good job. We need the right product, the right technology, and the right communication to ensure we're on track to lead different functions.

Offering a financial product that can handle sensitive user data means being cautious about cybersecurity. So we're ensuring we offer the right security and comply with the regulations, which comes with a lot of KPIs that we need to be cautious of and track contingencies.

MoneyFellows has so far raised a combined USD 11.5 mn and we’re days away from closing a series B round. Our biggest investors are Partech and Sawari Ventures. We’ve also received investments from 4DX, 500 Startups, P1 Ventures, Sango Capital and some angel investors.

We’re also about to launch four new products that we will announce very soon and we’re also looking at expanding into different countries, which will be our main focus over the next six months. We’re studying a few different countries in different regions, but mainly we’re looking into Asia, Africa and the GCC.

The local market is attractive, international investors just don’t see it. We need to attract more international investors, educate them and reassure them about Egypt. We’ve been through a lot of talks with international investors, including those that never looked into Egypt or invested in the country. The talks are usually centered around convincing them to invest in Egypt, not just MoneyFellows.

Naturally the founder's journey was lonely. I had to build my own support system, get the right advisors, and choose the right investors and chase.them for their support.

This is actually my third startup. I’ve done things in the proptech space, an online supermarket back in Germany, object tracking software and then MoneyFellows.

90% of what I do is usually revolving around the company, but to be honest, I'm enjoying it. If you really put a lot of effort and work hard towards achieving a certain goal and that goal is achieved, I think that's really what makes it all worth it.