Pakistan-based fintech SadaPay raises $7.2M in seed

Pakistan-based fintech SadaPay closes the largest seed round ever raised by a startup in Pakistan. The fintech announced that it has raised $7.2 million in a seed round led by New York-based Recharge Capital. Kingsway Capital, Raptor Group, and several other known fintech angels also participated in this round.

As SadaPay's consumer demand flourishes with its waitlist registrations surpassing 200,000, this new funding will allow the Islamabad-headquartered fintech to further expand its operations. The startup aims to simply money by eliminating the complexity of banking through modern technology and better customer experiences.

SadaPay was launched by Brandon Timinsky in 2019 to facilitate the country's third largest unbanked population in the world. According to Timinsky, Pakistan has a growing smartphone adoption rate and a burgeoning unbanked middle class - a combination which makes it one of the best places for emerging fintechs in the world.

Based on a neobank model, the fintech has already piloted its digital wallet and numberless debit card earlier in January under the supervision of the State Bank of Pakistan. While it was only allowed to operate with a maximum of 1000 customers during the pilot, SadaPay hopes to begin its public roll out soon after receiving a full Electronic Money Institution license from SBP. The company has not disclosed a specific timeline for this as yet.

The startup's business model is designed in such a manner that it is able to eliminate the high costs of physically setting up a traditional bank and instead is able to offer its financial services free of cost to its customers. SadaPay users can now sign up for a wallet account in two minutes to start using the SadaPay Virtual Mastercard.

Moreover, SadaPay is directly connected to NADRA's database which allows it to instantly verify a user's identity anywhere in the world.