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Fintech in MENA: a rising star

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region opens huge opportunities for fintechs thanks to the scale of the market and the lack of established financial institutions.

Compared to mature markets, like the US and Europe, 67% of the adult population (136 million adults) are either underbanked or unbanked. In spite of this, the MENA region demographics offer huge opportunities. More than 60% of the population is under the age of 30, compared to one-third in Europe. MENA’s population is also extremely tech-savvy and ready to embrace new digital technologies. In UAE, for instance, already more than 50% of the population uses digital wallets.

Government support and fintech-friendly regulations are also fostering homegrown entrepreneurship in the region and attracting global players. Countries in the region (especially UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain) are supporting the fintech ecosystem with initiatives ranging from free zones, like the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), and regulatory sandboxes like DIFC’s Innovation Testing License (ITL), Egypt fintech sandbox and SAMA regulatory sandbox in Saudia Arabia.

The region is also showing strong openness to crypto, with UAE and Bahrain leading the way in crypto adoption and regulation.

The fintech startup and venture capital scene are unsurprisingly booming. Fintech in MENA has already reached $819M in the first half of 2022, almost 2x the previous record. Additionally, crypto investments in MENA have skyrocketed, reaching $187M.

To discover more on Fintech in MENA click on the button below. 👇

In other news

👎 Eurozone Banks Fail to Factor In Climate Risks, ECB Says. Banks face a potential €70B hit from increasing natural disasters and sweeping changes across industries, as a very optimistic case - WSJ

🚨 Broken business models in fintech. In the current market downturn, Coatue, one of the biggest investors in private and public tech, draws a line between companies with a broken business, and others who are just suffering due to the current market environment. - LinkedIn Deepdive

😲 Klarna: buy now, pay 85% less a year later - Financial Times

Latest fintech deals

The largest this week:

🇩🇪 wefox the Berlin-based insuretech company raised $400M series D bringing its valuation to $4.5B. It is now the world’s biggest insurtech outside China, with more than 3M clients and $100ARR. 

🇺🇸 Coalition, the world’s largest commercial insurtech provider, just raised a new $250M funding at a $5B valuation from Valor Equity Partners, Allianz X and Kinetic Partners.

💻 Cyber insurance is one of the fastest-growing segments in insurance, but poses significant challenges for underwriting and risk prevention. Insurtechs like Coalition are tapping into this huge opportunity.

🇬🇧 YuLife raised $120M for its gamified, wellness-focused life insurance, led by Dai-ichi Life Holdings.

⛑ Insurers and insurtechs are expanding from risk transfer and mitigation to prevention. This is happening with IoT for asset monitoring in P&C and engagement for healthy behaviours in L&H.

Discover more on insurtech in our latest report. 👈

🇧🇷 Creditas, the leading fintech platform for secured and specialized financial solutions, raised $50M bringing its total Series F to $310 million.

Other notable fintech deals from around the globe:

🇬🇧 Griffin banks €15M for its self-service BaaS platform. Griffin wants to become the bank that fintechs can build on. The company is building a full-stack integrated BaaS platform, powered by modern user-friendly technology.

Discover more on embedded finance and BaaS. 👈

🇩🇪 Kadmos raised a $29M Series A  to build an end-to-end platform that helps employers remove the friction and many of the costs associated with paying their cross-border and migrant workforce. 

Read up on all the latest fintech deals in Dealroom.co

Notable M&A:

🇬🇧 🇫🇷 GoHenry, a UK-based pre-paid debit card provider and financial education app for teens, has acquired French FinTech PixPay. The acquisition of PixPay marks the company’s entry into Europe as it looks to expand its member base.

Discover more in our deep dive on Fintech for kids & teens. 👈

Tip of the week

🔎 Most active fintech investors in 2022

Fintech funding has slowed down significantly, but who is still strongly investing in Fintech? Using Dealroom "Investors" tab you can check the most active investors in the last 3, 6 and 12 months. 

Tiger Global, Coinbase Ventures and Global Founders Capital keep being the most active investors. Will we see this ranking change in the next months?

Job opportunities

🇦🇪 80+ job openings at fintech startups in Dubai, including Huspy, Tabby, Klasha and many others

🇩🇪 wefox, Europe's biggest insurtech, is hiring for React Frontend Developer and other 37 roles.

 🇳🇱 At Dealroom.co we are hiring a Sr. Data Engineer and 7 other roles.

Discover 59,000+ job openings at fintech startups (login for full results)

Dive in

🔎 The State of European Insurtech 

💰 The corporate expense management war

💹 Fintech Q1 Report

Lorenzo Chiavarini

Innovation Analyst
Dealroom

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