Paymob raises $35 million pre-Series C co-led by Mubadala and EBRD to scale MENA payments

Paymob, the Cairo-founded payments infrastructure provider, announced a $35 million pre-Series C funding round on September 21, 2026, co-led by Mubadala Investment Company, an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). British International Investment (BII), Global Ventures and DPI Ventures also participated in the round, which the company says will fund continued expansion across the Middle East and North Africa and new products for small and medium-sized enterprise merchants and agentic commerce.

The company was founded in 2015 by Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj and Mostafa Menessy, and Shawky remains co-founder and chief executive. Paymob holds a licence from the Central Bank of Egypt, entered the United Arab Emirates in 2023 and obtained a Retail Payment Services Licence from the Central Bank of the UAE in January 2025. It also opened a Riyadh office in 2023 with a Saudi Payments PTSP licence and an Oman office in 2023. Its platform serves merchants across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Pakistan, and the company says it serves more than 390,000 merchants and employs 1,100 staff.

The funding lands in a payments market that remains highly fragmented. Merchants in MENA typically need seven to eight payment methods, including buy-now-pay-later providers, local card networks and bank instalment schemes, each with separate integrations, negotiations and settlement cycles. Paymob consolidates access to more than 60 payment methods behind a single contract, a single API and one dashboard. That aggregation is the core of its commercial argument.

The raise also follows 18 months of rapid growth. Consolidated revenues increased by 3x across Paymob's four markets, while GCC revenues grew by 7x and now account for close to half of total revenue. Since securing its CBUAE Retail Payment Services Licence in January 2025, Paymob has onboarded roughly 20,000 merchants across its three GCC markets. Those figures give the pre-Series C round a concrete operational backdrop rather than a purely narrative one.

Key Facts

Mubadala announced on September 21, 2026 that Paymob raised $35 million in a pre-Series C round co-led by Mubadala and the EBRD, with British International Investment, Global Ventures and DPI Ventures also participating. The proceeds will fund Paymob's continued expansion across MENA, both by scaling its core digital payments acceptance business and by introducing new product offerings tailored to its SME merchants and catering to agentic commerce.

FinTech Global reported on September 21, 2026 that consolidated revenues at Paymob increased by 3x across its four markets over the last 18 months, while GCC revenues grew by 7x and now account for close to half of total income. The report added that Paymob has onboarded roughly 20,000 merchants across its three GCC markets since receiving its Retail Payment Services Licence from the Central Bank of the UAE in January 2025.

Zawya reported on September 21, 2026 that Paymob's platform addresses a fragmented environment in which merchants juggle seven to eight payment methods, including BNPL providers, local card networks and bank instalment solutions, by offering a single contract, API and dashboard for more than 60 payment methods. The same report noted that Paymob's investor base includes PayPal Ventures, Kora Capital, Clay Point Capital, FMO, A15, British International Investment, Helios Digital Ventures, Global Ventures and DPI Ventures, and that its previous round was a $22 million Series B extension led by EBRD Venture Capital in September 2024.

Tech Startups reported on September 21, 2026 that Paymob's $35 million pre-Series C appeared in a daily funding round-up alongside Melbourne-based Amber Electric's EUR49 million Series E, led by Morgan Stanley Investment Management's 1GT climate strategy. The round-up described Paymob as consolidating fragmented payment rails across MENA, and noted that MENA merchants may need separate relationships with cards, BNPL providers, local networks and bank-instalment systems, so Paymob's value rises as it hides that complexity behind one contract and API.

CNBC reported on September 21, 2026 in a video interview with Paymob co-founder and CEO Islam Shawky that sovereign wealth funds are bridging a critical growth-capital deficit across the Middle East. Shawky discussed securing backing from major international investors, including Mubadala and the EBRD, and addressed the current growth-stage venture capital gap in the MENA region.

Analysis

What this really means is that Paymob has become a test case for whether sovereign and development capital can fund the payments plumbing that private venture capital has struggled to scale in MENA. Mubadala's Ali Eid Al Mheiri, Executive Director of UAE Diversified Assets, framed the deal as part of Mubadala's MENA Venture Capital Fund and the push to make the UAE a leading regional fintech hub. The EBRD's Bruno Lusic, a VC and growth investor, said Paymob has built the payments infrastructure that MENA's SME economy has been missing, a single, scalable layer that removes friction for merchants and unlocks growth across markets that have historically been underserved by digital finance.

The numbers give that argument weight. A 3x increase in consolidated revenues over 18 months across four markets, and 7x growth in GCC revenues, show that Paymob's expansion into Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman is producing revenue rather than only merchant sign-ups. The roughly 20,000 merchants onboarded across three GCC markets since January 2025 suggest the CBUAE licence converted into commercial traction quickly. The 60-plus payment methods behind one integration represent a defensible aggregation layer, because each additional method raises the cost of switching for a merchant that has already built its checkout around Paymob.

The bigger picture here is that the round's co-lead structure matters as much as the amount. Mubadala brings sovereign scale from a portfolio it describes as US$385 billion (AED 1,414 billion) spanning six continents, while the EBRD brings development-bank discipline and a mandate to support private sector growth in underserved markets. British International Investment, Global Ventures and DPI Ventures add a mix of development finance and regional venture expertise. The resulting coalition is broader than a single lead investor, which matters for a company that needs to keep expanding across regulated markets.

The label pre-Series C also carries information. It suggests Paymob is raising ahead of a larger institutional round, and that the $35 million is intended to extend runway and accelerate product development rather than to fund a step change in balance sheet. CEO Islam Shawky said the round will help Paymob accelerate its growth plan across MENA and fast-track its product roadmap to become the go-to payments platform for agentic commerce. Agentic commerce, in which software agents initiate or complete transactions on behalf of users, is a bet that payment infrastructure will need to handle machine-initiated purchases at scale. Whether that bet pays off will depend on whether merchants and platforms adopt it as quickly as Paymob hopes.

Why It Matters

For MENA's SME economy, Paymob's consolidation of more than 60 payment methods into one contract, one API and one dashboard addresses a real operational tax. Merchants that would otherwise negotiate seven to eight separate relationships can instead integrate once. That matters most for small businesses that lack the engineering and finance teams to manage multiple integrations and settlement cycles. Paymob says it serves 390,000-plus merchants and employs 1,100 staff across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Pakistan, so the efficiency argument is already operating at regional scale.

For the region's fintech funding landscape, the deal is evidence that sovereign wealth funds and development finance institutions are willing to write growth-stage checks when traditional venture capital is cautious. CNBC's September 21, 2026 interview with Shawky focused on exactly that gap. Mubadala's US$385 billion portfolio and the EBRD's development mandate give the round a stability that a purely private round might lack, but they also raise expectations for governance, reporting and measurable regional impact.

For competition, Paymob's licence footprint matters. It holds a Central Bank of Egypt licence, entered the UAE in 2023 and obtained a CBUAE licence, opened a Riyadh office in 2023 with a Saudi Payments PTSP licence, and opened an Oman office in 2023. That regulated presence across multiple markets, plus Pakistan, is harder to replicate than a single-country product, and it is the asset the new capital is meant to scale.

Next Up

Paymob says the $35 million will fund continued MENA expansion, deeper SME product offerings and agentic commerce capabilities. Expect the company to build on its three GCC markets, where it has onboarded roughly 20,000 merchants since January 2025, and to press its advantage in Egypt, where it was founded in 2015 and remains licensed by the Central Bank of Egypt.

The open question is whether the pre-Series C is a bridge to a larger round or a signal that growth-stage capital in MENA remains structured around sovereign and development backers. With Mubadala, the EBRD, British International Investment, Global Ventures and DPI Ventures all participating, Paymob has assembled the investor base to find out. A formal Series C, if it comes, will test whether the 3x revenue growth and 7x GCC growth can be sustained as the company pushes into new products and markets.