The Dubai-based FinTech Qashio announced on Tuesday (Nov. 22) that it has raised $10 million in a seed round to accelerate its expansion into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
Participants in the round include One Way Ventures, MITAA, Cadorna Ventures, Sanabil 500 MENA, Nuwa Capital, Iliad Partners, Phoenix Investments, as well as strategic family offices and angel investors. The round includes both equity and non-equity financing.
Founded in 2021, Qashio is an expense management platform that enables businesses to issue corporate cards to their employees while giving them full visibility and control of expenses via a digital dashboard that tracks spending in real time.
As spend management solutions gain traction in the region, Qashio has onboarded clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and KSA that include Nana, Swiss International, Yaa Foods, Al Shiha Group, Tasoru Holding, Instashop, Saif Belhasa, EFS Facilities Management Services Group, Papa Johns, and Bulldozer Group.
“Saudi Arabia is making great efforts to align with its Vision 2030; taking FinTech-friendly approaches and bringing more FinTech firms into the market. At Qashio, we are proud to be an integral part of propelling a cashless society in the UAE and now KSA,” Armin Moradi, CEO and co-founder of Qashio said.
Fellow founder and CPO Jonathan Lau said, “We’re grateful to all our investors and advisers for their support on our expansion into the largest country in the Middle East. This round of funding will help us to expand hiring and growth into Saudi Arabia and other parts of the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] as well as accelerate the execution of the product roadmap.”
A recently published PYMNTS report “The Financial Performance Quandary: Leveraging Automation To Better Manage Non-Payroll Spending,” a collaboration with Airbase, found that poor visibility and control over non-payroll spending is a major business challenge.
According to the study, the typical accounts payable (AP) team allocates 17 hours per week managing pending by employees, a situation that has helped to fuel the proliferation of expense management solutions in recent years.
See more: Managing Non-Payroll Spend Takes AP Teams 17 Hours per Week
In the UAE, Qashio is joined by the likes of XPence and Bayzat vying for a slice of the market for corporate spend management software.
For all PYMNTS EMEA coverage, subscribe to the daily EMEA Newsletter
How Consumers Pay Online With Stored Credentials
Convenience drives some consumers to store their payment credentials with merchants, while security concerns give other customers pause. For “How We Pay Digitally: Stored Credentials Edition,” a collaboration with Amazon Web Services, PYMNTS surveyed 2,102 U.S. consumers to analyze consumers’ dilemma and reveal how merchants can win over holdouts.
