The company, which provides financial services to low- and middle-income workers, plans to use the funds to apply for a digital banking licence in Egypt and expand into Saudi Arabia.

Founded in 2019, Khazna aims to bridge the financial gap for Egyptians who lack access to traditional banking. The company offers services such as salary advances, digital payments, and micro-loans, allowing workers to manage their finances with greater flexibility. 

Currently, over 500,000 people use Khazna’s products, with 100,000 receiving their salaries directly through the platform. The company’s goal is to integrate financial services such as loans and insurance into payroll systems, making financial management more accessible for workers.

Khazna has focused on credit offerings for payroll and pension recipients, alongside unsecured loans for gig workers. This approach has helped the company reach profitability, according to CEO Omar Saleh. 

“What we did over the last two and a half years was to focus on our core product, which is credit offering to payroll and pension recipients and also unsecured loans to gig workers. This is the most profitable and core product in our journey, and getting it right was very important because it has helped us to hit profitability,” Saleh said.

In addition to loans, Khazna provides bill payment services, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) options, medical insurance, and rent-to-own products. However, one of the company’s biggest challenges is its inability to accept customer deposits, which makes lending operations costly. 

To address this, Khazna is working to secure a deposit-taking licence from Egypt’s Central Bank, which introduced a regulatory framework for digital banks in July 2024.

Beyond Egypt, Khazna is setting its sights on Saudi Arabia, where demand for consumer finance solutions is rising. Unlike BNPL companies such as Tabby and Tamara, which focus on short-term credit, Khazna aims to provide medium-term credit solutions like earned wage access (EWA), payroll-backed lending, and pension-based credit.

A key factor driving this expansion is the strong economic ties between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with nearly three million Egyptians living and working in Saudi Arabia. This presents an opportunity for Khazna to offer cross-border financial services, particularly in credit and foreign exchange (FX) solutions.

Added to these, Saudi Arabia’s capital markets have influenced Khazna’s decision. The Tadawul stock exchange, one of the most liquid in the region, has hosted multiple IPOs in recent years. 

Khazna plans to generate 40–50% of its revenue from Saudi Arabia within the next four years, positioning itself for a public listing on Tadawul. Saleh noted that this would provide early-stage investors with a clear path to exit, making an IPO a viable long-term strategy.

Khazna’s latest funding round was shaped by Egypt’s recent economic instability, including currency devaluation and investor caution. Between 2022 and 2023, fundraising for Egyptian startups became difficult, leading to a slowdown in venture capital deals. 

However, 2024 brought a turnaround, with over $50 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) flowing into the country following economic reforms.

This renewed investor assurance has benefited Khazna, which secured funding from both global and regional investors, including Quona, Speedinvest, SANAD Fund for MSME, anb Seed Fund, Aljazira Capital, Tibas Ventures, Khwarizmi Ventures, Nclude, and ICU Ventures.

The seed round, which brings OneOrder’s total funding raised to $10.5 million, including $6.5 million in working capital financing from financial institutions, also received participation from A15, and Delivery Hero Ventures. 

The company asserts to be a reliable business partner covering all procurement needs, with a goal to be the one-stop-shop for sourcing top-quality supplies at the best prices through a streamlined digital ordering process. 

Now, it plans to scale its operations in Egypt, increase its warehouse footprint, and explore growth opportunities within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, and Africa.

Founded by Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice, OneOrder was launched in March this year to enable restaurants place orders for food supplies through its online platform without facing the hassles of fragmented supply chains that lead to volatile prices, waste, quality issues, and storage costs.

Beyond the supply chain and inventory management system, the company is working on a more substantial operating system for the restaurants. It is focused on a full cycle that would turn their operations automatic by using AI and machine learning capabilities to drive the supply chain.

Leveraging data and partnerships, OneOrder will begin extending working capital financing options to restaurants as a way of helping them scale their operations. This will further help underserved clients who are unable to secure traditional financing. 

The round was co-led by Raed Ventures and Nclude, with participation from investors including Silicon Valley-based Endeavor Catalyst and 500 Global, bringing its total funding to date to $9.5 million. 

Grinta is focused on ensuring efficiency in the pharmaceutical supply chain by empowering independent pharmacies. The end-to-end platform offers a seamless and easy-to-use experience, giving access to the full spectrum of traceable pharmaceutical and medical products from multiple vendors in addition to providing fulfillment, demand planning, and inventory financing. To achieve its goal, the company is working with all stakeholders across the value chain, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and pharmacies.

Egypt has strong local manufacturers, three large distributors and more than 3,000 wholesalers all targeting 60,000 fragmented retail pharmacies that are yet to be digitised, which makes it the largest pharmaceuticals market in Africa with a size surpassing $6 billion. 

Mohamed Azab, co-founder and CEO of Grinta said, “We are very excited to have the right investor base as our backers that share the same values and vision of making Pharma accessible and affordable across Africa. As we plan to expand our footprint in the main Pharma hubs on the continent, we will also enable Egyptian and regional Pharma manufacturers to further penetrate the $50 billion African market.”

Azab added that since inception in 2021, Grinta has acquired two companies, PH Store, a similar digital platform in northern Egypt, and EME, a software development company with a solid tech team. As a result, the company expanded aggressively across seven governorates in Egypt, with over 14,000 registered pharmacies on its platform, 20,000+ SKUs and has delivered more than 100,000 orders over the last year.

Grinta is founded by serial Mohamed Azab, Yosra Badr, Ali Youssef, and Hamza Mohamed, who are active members of the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem and have successfully built and scaled several healthcare companies over the last 12 years across Africa. The founders have attracted impact-driven top talents across all verticals and reached approximately 300 employees.

“Grinta is an exceptional team of serial healthcare entrepreneurs on a mission to improve access to and affordability of medicines in Egypt and Africa,” commented Wael Nafee, Partner at Raed Ventures. 

“By empowering pharmacies to be more efficient at running their business, fixing a broken supply chain end-to-end, and partnering with all stakeholders in the value chain they will realise this vision. We’re proud to be doubling down on Grinta for this funding round as they expand across Africa.”

“We’re excited to partner with Grinta to help enable their vision of delivering customer-centric, data-driven, and fintech-enabled solutions to modernise the pharmaceutical supply chain in Egypt and beyond,” said Eslam Darwish, Founding General Partner at Nclude. 

“We look forward to supporting the Grinta team on their journey to build a digital and cashless bridge between underserved individual pharmacy owners and all stakeholders across the pharma value chain.” 

“Grinta represents our 10th investment in Egypt, making Endeavor Catalyst proudly one of the most active international investors in the country. But more than attracting attention and capital to the region, Mohamed Azab’s latest achievement advances the entire healthcare industry,” said Endeavor Catalyst Managing Partner Allen Taylor. 

“As an Endeavor Entrepreneur and Board Member, we have witnessed how Azab’s multiplier effect has impacted the local ecosystem. Our recent mapping showed that he alone has already inspired, invested, and mentored more than 100 local businesses in the Middle East, and this is only the beginning. We are huge fans of Azab and his team, knowing they can lead the next frontier of innovation in Egypt.”