STARTUP WATCH- Tribal Credit, a Silicon Valley-based fintech startup co-founded by two Egyptian entrepreneurs, has joined Visa’s Fintech Fast-Track program, which is designed to help fintech businesses scale up with support from Visa’s experts and resources, according to an emailed statement (pdf). The startup, founded by Amr Shady and Mohamed Elkasstawi, raised last December USD 5.5 mn in a seed funding round led by BECO Capital and Global Ventures. Tribal Credit uses “a proprietary AI-driven approval process and blockchain technology” to provide startups in emerging markets with instant access to credit and help remove financing hurdles. Tribal is seeing demand from startups in markets like Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico, where they “struggle to access traditional financial services like opening bank accounts, issuing business credit cards and making cross-border payments.”

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