UAE-based payment provider to use new funding to expand into KSA

DUBAI: UAE-based payment app Ziina has raised $7.5 million in new funding and plans to use the investment to finance its expansion into Saudi Arabia.
The latest seed funding was led by Avenir Growth Capital and Class 5 Global and included Wamda Capital, FJ Labs, Graph Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Jabbar Internet Group, and Oman Technology Fund’s Jasoor Ventures.
The rollcall of investors also included Zinal Growth, the investment fund of Checkout.com CEO Guillaume Pousaz, BukuKas CEO Krishnan Menon, Pawp CEO Marc Atiyeh, and executives from PayPal and Venmo.
Ziina describes itself as a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app, allowing users to send and receive payments with just a phone number. The company was founded last year by Faisal and Sarah Toukan, and Andrew Gold and was planning to use the new funding to expand its operations into Saudi Arabia and Jordan by 2022.
Faisal Toukan, CEO and co-founder of Ziina, said: “We are thrilled to have onboarded our latest group of partners and are grateful for the continued support from our existing investors.
“This round will fuel our expansion plans into Saudi Arabia and support the launch of our highly anticipated wallet feature, which we will be introducing along with our new banking partner shortly.”