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Egypt's Paymob secured $35 million in a pre-Series C round co-led by Mubadala and EBRD, targeting merchant payments expansion across MENA as GCC revenue approaches half its total.
- Paymob's $35M pre-Series C was co-led by Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and the EBRD, with BII, Global Ventures, and DPI Ventures also participating.
- The Egyptian fintech now serves over 390,000 merchants across Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman; GCC revenues grew 7x in 18 months.
- Total disclosed funding reaches approximately $125M, following a $50M Series B in 2022 and a $22M extension in 2024.
Lead
Egyptian payments infrastructure company Paymob has closed a $35 million pre-Series C round co-led by Mubadala Investment Company and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), with participation from British International Investment, Global Ventures, and DPI Ventures. The round, announced September 21, 2026, brings the company's total disclosed funding to approximately $125 million and funds an accelerated push across the MENA region.
What Did Paymob Build?
Founded in 2015 by Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj, and Mostafa Menessy, Paymob operates an omnichannel payments platform that gives merchants access to more than 60 payment methods through a single integration - covering online checkout, point-of-sale terminals, and mobile wallets. The company is, in practical terms, the payments middleware layer sitting between merchants and a fragmented collection of local banks and digital wallets across the Arab world.
The platform currently serves more than 390,000 merchants in Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Egypt remains the home market and the operational foundation. The Gulf is where the growth story now lives.
Why Is the GCC Becoming the Main Event?
The GCC now accounts for close to half of Paymob's total revenue. That figure deserves context: 18 months ago, the Gulf was a fraction of the business. GCC revenues have since grown sevenfold, a pace that has structurally shifted where the company's future earnings will come from.
The pivot westward from Cairo toward Riyadh and Abu Dhabi is not coincidental. Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 agenda includes explicit targets to reduce cash transactions; non-cash payments in the Kingdom reached 79% of total retail transactions in 2024, up from roughly 36% in 2017. The UAE has a similar trajectory. Both markets have seen government-mandated infrastructure investment that created new on-ramps for fintech operators who can clear licensing hurdles.
Paymob obtained its retail payment services license from the Central Bank of the UAE in January 2025 and has onboarded approximately 20,000 merchants in its three GCC markets since then. That figure - 20,000 in roughly 18 months - suggests the licensing unlock translated into real commercial traction rather than just regulatory paperwork.
What Does This Round Signal About Valuation?
The pre-Series C label implies Paymob is deliberately staging its fundraising - building a cleaner growth narrative before seeking the higher multiple a full Series C would require. The company's $50 million Series B closed in 2022, when fintech valuations globally were near their peak. The $22 million Series B extension came in 2024 at a quieter moment for the sector. A $35 million pre-Series C now, with 3x consolidated revenue growth over 18 months and a sovereign fund anchor, positions the company for a formal Series C at a valuation the current numbers can justify.
Mubadala's participation is strategically legible: the Abu Dhabi fund has a documented interest in building Gulf-adjacent digital financial infrastructure, and Paymob's UAE traction gives it a natural synergy with the fund's portfolio and regional priorities. EBRD's continued backing - it also led the 2024 extension - signals institutional confidence in the company's development finance credentials across Egypt and broader MENA.
Where Does the Capital Go?
Paymob has stated the funds will support geographic expansion across MENA, new product development for SME merchants, and early-stage work in agentic commerce - the emerging category where AI agents initiate and complete transactions autonomously on behalf of users. Agentic commerce is nascent enough that no operator can credibly claim it as a near-term revenue driver, but the positioning suggests Paymob is tracking where payment infrastructure investment will concentrate over the next several years.
The SME focus is more immediately material. Micro and small merchants represent the majority of Paymob's 390,000-strong base. Expanding the product depth for that cohort - credit, working capital tools, invoicing - is a well-worn path that payments companies from Square to Stripe have used to increase revenue per merchant without requiring proportional growth in merchant count.
Outlook
Paymob enters its pre-Series C phase with a credible GCC revenue story, a sovereign fund on the cap table, and a home market in Egypt that provides volume at scale. The central question for a formal Series C will be whether GCC revenue growth sustains its trajectory as the low-hanging post-licensing merchant acquisition cohort matures into steady-state accounts. If the 7x GCC growth rate normalizes toward the company's 3x consolidated figure, the valuation case becomes harder. If it holds, Paymob has a legitimate claim to being the MENA region's dominant merchant payments infrastructure play.
