News
Tribal Credit Raises $34.3 Million to Support SMEs in Emerging Markets
Tribal Credit, a payment fintech specially designed for small and medium-sized businesses in emerging markets, announced today closing a combined Series A and debt round of $34.3 million.
The investment was led by QED Investors and Partners for Growth (PFG). Existing investors BECO Capital, Global Ventures, OTG Ventures, and Endure Capital also took part in the round, joined by new investors Endeavor Catalyst.
As part of the investment, Tribal received $3 million from the Stellar Development Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the development and growth of the open-source Stellar blockchain network. Their investment will facilitate the development of Tribal’s blockchain products and integration onto the Stellar network.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated many startups’ move to digital and increased the number of new businesses spending online. Despite a need to make an ever-increasing number of cross-border B2B payments digitally, many SMEs have found it even more difficult to get approved for traditional corporate cards.
Using a proprietary AI-driven approval process, Tribal Credit not only provides SMEs with virtual and physical corporate cards, but also offers a digital platform that allows founders and CFOs to give access to and manage the spend of their distributed teams.
Every year, there are 62 million Latin America SMEs transacting globally, and the LatAm market represents a $15 billion opportunity, led by Mexico—Tribal Credit’s biggest market.
“This round allows us to accelerate our growth in Mexico and help the new generation of SMEs fueling the Mexican economy break free from local financial barriers,” said Tribal Credit CEO Amr Shady.
“We have invested heavily in our product over the past year. We’re the first mover in our segment in LatAm with a diverse suite of SME products that includes corporate cards, wire payments, and treasury services. We’re incredibly excited by the future ahead of us in Mexico and beyond.”
“QED has been following payments and the lending needs of SMEs in emerging markets closely and Tribal has proven itself a leader in Latin America,” said Lauren Morton, Partner, QED Investors. “Compared with everything else we’ve seen in this market, Tribal has a differentiated and superior product that meets customers’ needs in a way that no competitor can match.
“Tribal has had strong traction in Mexico, with adoption from fast-growing startups across the country, including many companies within our own portfolio. Through the combination of a unique product and an incredibly talented team passionate about solving a real problem, it’s no surprise that Tribal has quickly become an innovative disruptor in a red-hot market.”
As a global specialty lending firm focused on the tech sector with deep experience structuring fintech warehouse lines, PFG is providing the debt facility. Managing Director Armineh Baghoomian said, “The Tribal team has identified a significant unmet need in Mexico and developed a compelling product to enhance access to financial services. We look forward to growing with Tribal as they continue to scale in Mexico and across emerging markets globally.” In addition to funding from PFG’s global fund, PFG will be co-investing from its Latin America Growth Lending Fund in partnership with IDB Invest and SVB Financial Group, the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank.
Tribal Credit COO Duane Good said, “Our Series A funding round will help us scale our business faster, accelerate our growth in Mexico, and continue our mission of financial inclusion. We are uniquely positioned to serve high-growth SMEs and startups transacting both locally and globally. We offer both locally issued Visa business cards as well as international US dollar cards. Our customers will benefit from lower fees and comprehensive merchant acceptance.”
Hundreds of customers in Mexico are using Tribal Credit’s payment solutions, including Minu, payroll advances startup; Fairplay, e-commerce financing platform; SLM, leading tech solutions company in LatAm; Ben & Frank, online optical store and one of the top e-commerce companies in the country.
As part of growth, Tribal Credit is looking to fill different positions based out of Mexico. “We’re excited to augment the current team in Mexico with more talented people across different functions,” said Duane.
The San Francisco-based company previously raised $7.8 million in a series of seed rounds, making the total raised $42.1 million. Tribal Credit also joined Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program, adding it to an elite group of fintechs and accelerating its integration with Visa’s global payment network.
Tribal Credit beta launched in December 2019 offering corporate cards and a spend management platform for startups and SMEs in emerging markets. With demand growing for better online B2B banking experiences since the pandemic started, the company expanded its payments and financing products to include Tribal Pay, helping customers settle non-card purchases and benefit from extended payment terms.
With expertise honed at leading tech companies and financial institutions, Tribal Credit’s leadership team of serial entrepreneurs, data scientists, and fintech execs have built and scaled startups in both emerging markets and the U.S. Amr Shady, former founder of TA Telecom, a telco payments startup with operations that expanded in six emerging markets; Duane Good, former HSBC EVP and founding member of eCapital Financial and MBNA International; Mark Graves of Marqeta Inc., Silicon Valley Bank, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA); Mohamed Elkasstawi, founder of ZK Capital, a blockchain research firm; Omar Kamal, formerly of Mentor Graphics, IBM, Lucent Technologies and HP; and Ehab Zaghloul, co-founder of ZK Capital.
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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