SimpliFi, a Cards as a Service (CaaS) platform for MENA and Pakistan, has raised $5.1 million in funding to accelerate its expansion across the region following its beta launch in August 2021.
This round of funding saw participation from Global Founders Capital, Raed Ventures, 4DX Ventures and Rally Cap Ventures. Both Raed Ventures and Rally Cap Ventures had participated in SimpliFi’s funding round earlier in the year along with a number of strategic investors from the region and outside as well as current and former employees of Careem, Facebook, Plaid and Remitly.
SimpliFi provides businesses a one stop solution to issue and manage their cards program. The company manages all ecosystem partners required to issue cards including banks, card schemes, processors, identity verification, card fulfillment and customer care to deliver a seamless experience across multiple markets. In addition to providing a purpose built tech stack, SimpliFi manages day to day card operations and compliance functions so businesses can focus on their core strengths whilst leveraging the capabilities and scale of SimpliFi.
After launching its beta version in August this year, the company received strong interest from organizations across the region seeking to issue cards to fulfill their business needs and to offer card products to SMEs and consumers. The company has inked several strategic partnerships with banks, processors and other providers to enable its CaaS platform and signed up a number of clients, many of which are the largest brands and category leaders in the region. In parallel, SimpliFi has been building the team aggressively with experience from Careem, Grab, Gojek, Uber, PayPal, Marqeta, Mastercard, Facebook and Network International.
“We were overwhelmed (yet humbled) by the response we got after we launched in August. It was only then that we realized that the opportunity was substantially bigger than what we had originally anticipated which emboldened us to double down and accelerate our expansion across the region.” commented Ali Sattar, Founder and CEO of SimpliFi.
“We like the card issuance space and have backed similar players (to SimpliFi) in other regions of the world. SimpliFi has a world class team with strong regional network and experience, undying passion and uncompromising values and we are confident that they are on their way to becoming the leading card issuance platform in the region.” commented Tito Costa, Partner at Global Founders Capital.
“SimpliFi’s vision to transform the payments infrastructure in the region to create sustainable impact and its ethos towards honesty, excellence and continuous improvement are aligned with our mission and values. We are excited to be partnering with Ali and the team as they build something truly unique and impactful.” says Peter Orth, Co-Founder and General Partner at 4DX Ventures.
“Raed joined SimpliFi on its journey earlier in the year and we’ve been truly impressed by the speed of execution of the team and their ability to attract top notch brands as clients. At the same time we see growing demand for card issuance in the region and are excited to continue to back SimpliFi as it expands its presence across the region.” says Wael Nafee, Partner at Raed Ventures.
SimpliFi provides all the tools necessary for a business – technology or non-technology – to run its cards program. SimpliFi’s PCI DSS certified platform consists of micro APIs, SDKs, web portal and a white label app which companies can use to build, customize, launch and manage their card programs quickly and without any technology or payments background.
For further information, please visit the SimpliFi website: https://simplifipay.com/.
