SadaPay, a Pakistan-based FinTech, has secured $10.7 million in an extension round to its $7.2 million SEED round that closed in March 2021. Previous investors Recharge Capital, Kingsway Capital, and Raptor Group also participated in this round.
Brandon Timinsky, an American entrepreneur, established SadaPay in 2018 with the goal of making banking more accessible for Pakistanis. SadaPay’s name derives from the Urdu and Arabic word ‘sada’ which means ‘simple’. “The complexities of banking can be intimidating to the average Pakistani, so our mission is to make money so simple that any other way would become unthinkable,” says Timinsky.
SadaPay is able to pass on its cost savings to customers in an attempt to provide free financial services by utilizing advanced technologies and avoiding the massive costs of operating physical infrastructure, like traditional banks require. Tayseer Ali, the company’s CFO, explains how the company generates money: “Think of it as a ‘freemium model.’ The basics are free, but we make revenue from value-added services. For example, when we help freelancers accept international payments or offer payroll services to businesses.”
The State Bank of Pakistan has granted the startup a commercial license to provide financial services as an Electronic Money Institution. SadaPay now can continue forward with their public launch.
“You can imagine the impossible logistical challenge to print and send out 500,000 debit cards in one day!” says the company’s COO Omer Salimullah, “In order to maintain the highest levels of customer experience, we intend to roll out accounts to our waitlist over a number of weeks.”
SadaPay plans to grow its team by the end of the year and increase its product offering to include other solutions for freelancers and small business owners with the new funding.