News
Egyptian Fintech Dayra Joins Y Combinator, Secures US $3M in Pre-Seed
Dayra is a Cairo-based fintech startup providing unbanked gig-workers and micro-businesses with financial services. The company has joined Y Combinator’s Winter 21 batch, closing the largest debt and equity Pre-Seed round in MENA and bringing its total funding to $3 million.
Dayra is funded by Tanmiya Capital Ventures, EFG EV Fintech, EFG Hermes, Y Combinator, and multiple prominent angel investors.
Only 30% of 105 million Egyptians are banked, leaving most of the country unbanked and reliant on cash transactions. Requirements such as proof of income by the banking sector make it hard for gig-workers and micro-business owners to open bank accounts. This leads to a lack of transactional data available to banks and micro-finance institutions and to the non-existence of virtual financial identities for the majority of Egyptians, a problem that directly contributes to financial exclusion in Egypt. It also makes it hard for many companies to disburse payments to their contractors, gig-workers, and customers.
With little to no access to credit options, unbanked individuals are left to borrow from traditional micro-lenders known for their large application fees, manual investigations, long processes, and high rejection rates. Others end up borrowing from informal sources at inconsistent and unfair terms.
This is where Dayra comes in; the company was founded in early 2020 by Omar Ekram to improve the lives of millions of unbanked individuals in MENA, starting with Egypt. Dayra empowers companies to provide their unbanked gig-workers and customers with financial solutions via API integrations while taking the payment disbursement hassle off those companies and allowing them to extend their payment terms. Dayra’s financial solutions include virtual bank accounts, prepaid cards, and access to credit – instantly, hassle-free, and at lower costs than traditional lenders.
The company’s typical end-users range from gig workers such as delivery couriers, truck drivers, and freelancers to micro-business owners such as kiosks, small shops, restaurants, and artisans. Analyzing end-user transactions enables Dayra to create alternative credit scores and virtual financial identities for them. Businesses can integrate with Dayra in two ways: they can offer Dayra’s financial solutions directly from within their app using the API integration or, if they don’t have their own app or portal, they can use Dayra’s app directly.
“We are thrilled to be part of YC’s W21 batch and to close our pre-seed round. This is a key milestone in realizing our vision of providing the most accessible financial services solution in MENA and delivering digital financial services to millions of financially excluded individuals, leveraging on our strategic partnership with EFG Hermes,” said Omar Ekram, the founder and CEO of Dayra.
Before starting Dayra, Ekram co-founded the private equity fund Tanmiya Capital Ventures, which participated in Dayra’s Pre-Seed round. Ekram was able to closely observe the inefficiencies of Egypt’s financial services sector and its impact on financial exclusion during his years in the financial services sector. As a self-taught programmer, he built the MVP for Dayra and subsequently landed its first client in March 2020.
Since its launch, Dayra has grown at a monthly growth rate of over 50%. It has allowed thousands of unbanked individuals to access their income early through tens of thousands of transactions worth millions of dollars, with an average loan size of USD 500. Thanks to the trust its partners have placed in the company.
Dayra has received an investment from YC as part of the YC W21 batch. The team has now grown to 10+ individuals, fulfilling operations, BD, product, and tech functions. The company plans on doubling its team members to grow the company and build out new product features.
“We are exceptionally proud to be the first institutional investor partnering with Dayra, in whom we see vast potential due to their disruptive and relevant business model as Egypt works to build financial inclusion and intermediation. Today, EFG Hermes has several key facilities on offer to empower companies with great ideas such as Dayra to come in and fill essential gaps in the market. We have funneled key investment capital in the company through EFG EV Fintech and offered a bespoke, multi-million financing facility through our factoring and leasing arm EFG Hermes CorpSolutions. We are confident that Dayra has the tools in place to make the impact it hopes to see in the market, and we’re proud to be helping them get there,” said Walid Hassouna, CEO of the NBFI Platform at EFG Hermes and Group Head of Debt Capital Markets.
Mahmoud El Zohairy, CEO EFG EV Fintech, also said: “We are thrilled about partnering with Dayra and look forward to seeing them through on a path of success. Dayra’s unique go-to-market approach empowers gig economy participants while alleviating working capital stress on their employers in a seamless manner, something that the market needs right now. Thanks primarily to the world-class team Dayra has put together, including a founder with first-hand knowledge of the financial system as well as deep knowhow in the tech space, we are excited to see what they have in store for the market.”
News
Putin, Obama war on social media starts with unfriend on Facebook
New stage of the cold war, is it?
The Social media war between Putin and Obama started with UnFriend, this is the action taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Facebook diplomacy with American president Barack Obama.
The unfriending comes after an official White House update about the possibility of a US-Syrian war. President Putin revealed that Obama’s updates about the Congressional debate on a possible war with Syria have annoyed him.
After unfriending, President Putin update status on profile “Something I should have done a long time ago”
Also, He said to Russia’s Pravda News Service “President Assad and I, we are the Facebook friends. We like the same pages, we share pictures of cute women and all that. Obama needs to lighten up on there, it’s not for serious stuff,”
President Obama’s latest posts about the possibility of the war in Syria have been reported by someone and he received a warning from Facebook that he will be prevented from posting on his profile for 24 hours.
He has also commented “Really, Putin needs to grow up. If he didn’t like that [post], he could have just hid it from his news feed instead of creating all this Facebook drama,”
JOE BIDEN “Vice President of the United States” announced to reports that President Obama has signed into his Twitter account to unfollow Putin.
The turmoil generated between Putin and Obama over their dispute on the Syrian crisis. Expanded to reach the social networks
Putin and Obama on social Networks
The question now is, are we witnessing a new stage of the cold war between the two countries, will they continue the war online instead of the military tactics and old spy war?
It’s obvious that social media is really changing the game in everything, and now it’s taking over on a very high level.
Keep an eye on Digital Boom and we will keep you posted with more news and updates on the cold war and even more…
News
Amr Diab Gets Hacked on Twitter
Amr Diab’s Facebook page has announced that his twitter account has been hijacked by anonymous and now tweeting political.
Update: Amr Diab’s Facebook Page announced that “Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been restored successfully and you can follow Amr’s tweets normally now”
Amr Diab got hacked on Twitter
On Thursday 9th of Jan, Amr Diab’s Facebook page announced that Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been hacked by anonymous and now tweeting politics!
Amr Abdul-Basset Abdul-Azeez Diab (born 11 October 1961) is an Egyptian singer and composer of pop music. He was awarded the World Music Award for Best Selling Middle East Artist, three times: 1998 for the album “Nour El Ain”, 2002 for the album “Aktrr Wahid Byhbak 2001” and 2007 for the album “El Lillady”. Amr Diab also won The African Music Awards 2009, Big Apple Music Awards; Life Achievements Awards: Best Singer of The Year in 2009, and Best Male Act in African Music Awards 2010.
He is known as the Father of Mediterranean Music He has created his own style which is often termed “Mediterranean Music” or “Mediterranean Sound”, a blend of Western and Egyptian rhythms.
In The Mediterranean in Music, David Cooper and Kevin Dawe referred to his music as “the new breed of Mediterranean music”.According to author Michael Frishkopf, Amr Diab has produced a new concept of Mediterranean music, especially in his international hit, “Nour El Ain”.
In his analysis of The Very Best of Amr Diab album, Victor W. Valdivia of All music said: “His music melded traditional Arabic sounds and textures with Western rhythms and instruments. The mesh was dubbed Mediterranean music, and The Very Best of Amr Diab displays Diab’s superb skill in creating it.”
In 1997, he won three awards at the Annual Arabic Festival: one for Best Video, for Best Song, and for Best Artist of the Year. Diab received a Triple Platinum Award for the sales of Nour El Ain and a World Music Award in Monaco.
After the success of the previously shared overall analysis of Sherine’s new album “Ana Keter” and her social media presence, we decided to fulfill your requests with more details and additional insights.
The report is from Jan 15 through Jan 31, 2014; however, starting Feb, we noticed that Sherine’s team has enhanced and developed how they engage with fans on Facebook.
Still, there’s more to do; please review the slides below to know what exactly they are missing with recommendations.
Check out the report:
Key take-outs in 15 days after the launch:
- Album gained 11 million views in 2 weeks on YouTube
- YouTube Channel subscribers boosted by 90K subscribers in 15 days out of 127K total subscribers overtime
- Buzz reached 15K tweets/RTs since the launch on Twitter
- How do people talk about the album/Sherine on Twitter?
- People are sharing songs from YouTube & SoundCloud
- +90% positive sentiment on Twitter
- Sherine’s Twitter account is excellent at spreading the news about the album’s success.
- People are tweeting the song’s lyrics.
- Sarcastic tweets about Sherine & few songs (regular) - Almost zero negativity about the album
- Album teasers on Facebook created credibility for Sherine’s page, reflected in the page results after the album’s launch in the next 15 days with 92K Interactions & 312K New Likes.
- The album received tremendous engagement on the launching date of Jan 15. However, no posts for four days after the launch negatively affected the interactions.
Recommendations:
Sherine Abdel Wahab’s Facebook page would have received double or maybe triple new likes and interactions if the improved posts’ quality; please find below the points taken:
- Long updates with no extra value-added will lead to losing your fans’ interest
- The text-only format isn’t preferred, as it is well-known that they generate less reach than other content (Facebook announcement)
- A call to action is essential to generate leads & increase engagement
- Each post has to have its visual, audio, or video so you can attract/engage your audiences
- Understand the situation and act upon it, always be relevant to the time and avoid posting irrelevant content at the wrong time.
- Revise the tone of voice in future activities.
To recap - Overall performance is average to good - Enhance your content formatting - Improve the tone of voice on all networks - Be creative to engage your fans better - Be Consistent - Start your SoundCloud account.
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