Success Story: A Look At Fawry's Journey To Become Egypt's First Unicorn Startup Fawry's journey to reaching unicorn status was a long one driven with strategic moves and focused vision, up until a landmark moment in 2019 when the company put 36% of its shares on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX).
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It was a monumental moment when Mohamed Okasha, the ex-Managing Director of Fawry, made this statement on his LinkedIn account in August 2020: "Fawry is officially a Unicorn." After all, Fawry was the first ever startup to reach a billion-dollar valuation in Egypt.
Established in 2008 by Ashraf Sabry, Fawry provides a diversified e-payment platform that facilitates everything from electronic bill payments to mobile top-ups. Fawry's journey to reaching unicorn status was a long one driven with strategic moves and focused vision, up until a landmark moment in 2019 when the company put 36% of its shares on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) at EGP6.46 (US$0.21) per share.
With an initial public offering that was oversubscribed by an overwhelming 30.3 times, aiming to accumulate EGP1.6 billion ($51,780,000), this strategy wasn't merely a fundraiser, but an astute maneuver to involve influential stakeholders in its journey. About 21% of the offering was divided between entities like Actis, Banque Misr, and the National Bank of Egypt, and the rest engaging public and substantial investors.
Following this move, Fawry recorded EGP38.0 million ($1.2 million) in consolidated profits during Q1 of 2020, an 82% increase from EGP20.9 million ($0.7 million) a year before, while revenues rose to EGP258.0 million ($8.3 million) from EGP173.9 million ($5.6 million) during the same period. Two years later, Fawry's annual revenue had spiked to $75 million in 2022, and its market cap stood at $542 million as of March 2022.
Fawry processed transactions worth an astounding $6.8 billion in 2022, and today, the company is not merely a financial entity, but a lighthouse in Egypt's digital financial landscape. Fawry Microfinance launched its digital loan request and tracking mobile app, Tamweelak Fawry, in November 2022, and announcements have been made about a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service that's on the horizon for 2023.
Source: Fawry
Fawry's network boasts a strong line-up of 36 member banks and over 280,000 agents, as well as a user-friendly app that has enabled over 50 million users to seamlessly navigate through payments, collections, reconciliations, and other financial operations. The number of transactions has also grown an impressive 22% year-on-year from 2018 to 2022, and it is set to touch over 1.5 billion transactions at the end of 2023. As for what's next, Fawry has been engaging new partners and collaborators including the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Tamatem Plus, and CYBERX to deliver cash-assistance, enhance e-payment experiences, and spread cyber security awareness among Egyptians.
For more insights on Egypt's entrepreneurial ecosystem, check out the report, Investing in Egypt's Startup Ecosystem, here.
This article was originally published on Lucidity Insights, a partner of Entrepreneur Middle East in developing special reports on the Middle East and Africa's tech and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
