Paymob Raises $35M Pre-Series C Co-Led by Mubadala and EBRD

Egyptian payments infrastructure provider Paymob has secured $35 million in a pre-Series C round co-led by Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala Investment Company and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). British International Investment, Global Ventures and DPI Ventures also participated in the raise.

The Cairo-based company will use the fresh capital to scale its core digital payments acceptance operations across the Middle East and North Africa and to roll out new products aimed at SME merchants and agentic commerce use cases.

Paymob, which describes itself as the leading payments infrastructure service provider in the MENA region, was founded in 2015 by Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj and Mostafa Menessy. The company builds infrastructure technology that enables digital financial service providers through mobile wallet technology. Its omnichannel gateway offers more than 60 payment solutions and serves close to 350,000 merchants.

The round follows a Series B extension to $72 million in September 2024, which Disrupt Africa reported at the time. Since then, Paymob has accelerated its Gulf expansion. The company received a Retail Payment Services Licence from the Central Bank of the UAE in January 2025 and has since onboarded around 20,000 merchants across its three GCC markets — the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

Shawky, Paymob's CEO, framed the raise as a milestone in the company's transformation from an Egyptian fintech into a regional platform. "Paymob morphed into a regional platform over the past 18 months, propelled by the exponential growth of our GCC business. This pre-Series C funding round will help us accelerate our growth plan across the MENA region and fast-track our product roadmap to become the go-to payments platform for agentic commerce. We are very excited about Mubadala joining our cap table and grateful for the continued support of our existing shareholders," he said.

The investment signals continued institutional appetite for MENA payments infrastructure despite a broader tightening of venture funding into African fintech. Mubadala's involvement brings an Abu Dhabi sovereign investor directly onto Paymob's cap table as the company deepens its footprint in the Gulf. With the new capital, Paymob now counts a sovereign fund, two development finance institutions and regional venture investors among its backers as it pushes toward a full Series C.