Egypt-based Paymob has raised $35 million in a pre-Series C round to expand its payments infrastructure across the MENA region and accelerate new products for SMEs and agentic commerce.

The round was 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 funding follows a strong 18 months for Paymob. Consolidated revenue across its four markets has tripled, while GCC revenue has grown sevenfold and now represents close to half of the company’s total income.

The GCC Has Become a Second Growth Engine

Paymob’s expansion is increasingly being driven by the Gulf. Since receiving its Retail Payment Services Licence from the Central Bank of the UAE in January 2025, the company has onboarded around 20,000 merchants across its three GCC markets.

That growth is changing the company’s position in the region. Paymob started in Egypt, but its recent performance shows that the GCC is becoming a major part of its business rather than simply another market for expansion.

The new funding will support further growth across MENA while allowing Paymob to scale the infrastructure behind its existing merchant base.

Solving Payment Fragmentation for Merchants

One of Paymob’s core propositions is built around a problem that becomes more complicated as merchants expand across markets: payment fragmentation.

Merchants can face seven or eight separate payment methods, including buy now, pay later providers, local card networks and bank instalment schemes. Each can require its own integration, commercial agreement and settlement process.

Paymob’s platform brings more than 60 payment methods together through a single contract, API and dashboard. Its omnichannel infrastructure covers online and offline payments while also providing tools for transaction processing and financial management.

For SMEs in particular, reducing the number of payment relationships they need to manage can become as important as adding another payment method.

Preparing for Agentic Commerce

The next product opportunity Paymob identifies is agentic commerce. The company plans to accelerate its product roadmap around use cases where AI agents can participate in purchasing and payment workflows.

That puts additional importance on the infrastructure underneath the transaction. As commerce becomes more automated, payment platforms need to connect merchants, payment methods and transaction flows in ways that can work across different channels.

Paymob is therefore using its existing merchant and payment infrastructure as a foundation for a new product layer rather than building agentic commerce as a standalone proposition.

Regional Scale Requires Local Infrastructure

Paymob’s latest round also highlights the value of building payment infrastructure that can accommodate regional differences without forcing merchants to manage that complexity themselves.

Its growth across Egypt and the GCC gives the company an expanding base from which to introduce additional services. The challenge will be maintaining that unified experience as Paymob enters more MENA markets, each with its own payment preferences, regulations and financial infrastructure.

For fintech startups, the model offers a practical lesson: regional expansion can create more value when the platform absorbs local complexity rather than passing it on to customers.

Key Takeaways for Fintech Startups

Paymob’s funding round highlights several lessons for fintech founders:

• Regional growth can change the business model: GCC expansion has become a significant contributor to Paymob’s overall revenue.
  
  
• Fragmentation creates infrastructure opportunities: Consolidating payment methods can solve a meaningful operational problem for merchants.
  
  
• Build once, serve multiple use cases: A strong payments layer can support acceptance, financial management and new commerce models.
  
  
• AI needs financial infrastructure underneath it: Agentic commerce will depend on reliable payment rails, merchant connectivity and transaction execution.

Paymob is building toward a model where merchants can manage more of their financial operations through one technology layer. If you’re building fintech infrastructure and planning regional growth, Contact us to discuss your strategy, positioning and expansion plans.