Zain Ventures invests $38mln in BNPL app ZoodPay

Zain Group, a leading telecom group, has announced an investment in ZoodPay, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) Super Apps series B $38 million fundraising through its venture capital arm Zain Ventures.

Zain Ventures will work closely with the teams of ZoodPays fintech solution and its demand generation marketplace ZoodMall to accelerate their growth and expansion across the region, stimulating local and cross-border e-commerce transactions, boosting socio-economic activity and creating jobs.

Headquartered in Switzerland, the ZoodPay & ZoodMall app already has more than 8 million users and ten offices across the Middle East and Central Asia. The business commits to delivering a "Swiss quality" shopping experience and cross-border services to merchants and shoppers across fast-growing fintech and e-commerce emerging markets such as Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

ZoodPays Super App BNPL fintech solution offers ZoodMall online and offline shoppers in core geographies convenient options and instant approval to buy products in their local currency in cash or with the flexibility of paying in four to six monthly instalments, without any interest or fees.

ZoodMall is the Middle East and Central Asias fastest-growing mobile-only marketplace, providing consumers access to 7 million products from over 30,000 local and cross-border merchants.

The ZoodPay Super App and its marketplace ZoodMall offers an attractive, convenient, and unique value-proposition to digital-savvy online shoppers and the underbanked population across Zains markets, supporting the companys4Sight strategic Fintech and digital lifestyle aspirations to customers and beyond. Zain is confident this strategic investment will be value-accretive to Zain Ventures on multiple fronts as the team works closely with the successful ZoodPay team on accelerating its growth and expansion across our footprint, a statement from Zain Group noted.

A statement from OrientSwiss, the parent company of ZoodPay and ZoodMall noted: As local and cross-border e-commerce grows, partnering with dynamic companies such as Zain will be a positive boost for all stakeholders in the ecosystem, whether they be customers, merchants or investors. OrientSwiss would like to thank the Zain Ventures management team and other investors for their trust and confidence, and looks forward to taking the ZoodPay Super App ecosystem to new heights.

ZoodPays Buy Now Pay Later Super App also encompasses the ZoodMall marketplace, and the logistics cross-border corridor, ZoodShip. This ecosystem empowers and incentivizes merchants from the Middle East, Central Asia, China, Europe, Russia, and Turkey to open their storefronts to local, new low-penetrated and fast-growing markets without additional set-up costs or fees. Merchants have a unique one-stop value proposition offer to shoppers, supporting them in gaining new customers (including the underbanked) with higher-order value and building brand loyalty by offering:

1. Secure, flexible, and popular payment methods either by cash or through ZoodPays BNPL solution

2. Creating demand generation and marketing for products through the ZoodMall B2C marketplace

3. Full-operational logistics support for delivery and customer support to reduce product returns. TradeArabia News Service