Raseedi acquires Kashat: Fintech startup Raseedi has acquired Kashat — as well as its subsidiary, nano-financial services provider Pharos Microfinance — for an undisclosed sum, in what the firm described as “an equity deal to broaden its product offerings and introduce instant loans” to its portfolio, Raseedi said in a statement (pdf).

What the acquisition will bring: The transaction will open the door to the launch of a new product that will allow small and single-proprietor business owners to apply for instant disbursed cash of up to EGP 3k provided by Kashat in less than 5 minutes; the facilities will have a short repayment cycle of 1-3 months. The product will be based on Raseedi’s “proprietary technology and home grown credit scoring algorithm,” the two said.

The company has big expansion plans in the pipeline: After launching in Egypt — which will take roughly six months — Raseedi will look into expanding into markets that could include Morocco, Uzbekistan, as well as other economies in Central and West Africa, Raseedi CEO Ahmed Atalla told EnterpriseAM. “Initially, we’re going to be looking at markets with a significant unbanked population. Tentatively, we’re planning on launching in Morocco within 12 months,” he told us.

“We currently have around 120k active monthly users on our platform — we plan to push that figure to around 1.5 mn within the next 6-8 months, before hitting our main target of 3 mn monthly users,” Atalla told us. “We plan to be disbursing up to EGP 3k to underbanked people — a figure we plan to talk to the FRA about increasing over time. We want to provide users with lending opportunities for their small businesses or for entrepreneurial ventures they may be working on,” he continued.

Raseedi also plans on launching a B2B service, where it would partner with ride-hailing companies to provide drivers with instant payment against future rides that are paid for through credit cards, and to provide delivery workers with cash payments in advance — all of which would be up to EGP 3k to be paid back within a short term. “The goal is to conduct partnerships with big business with a lot of employees on the ground to give them the ability to be paid in advance for their endeavours,” Atalla said, adding that Raseedi will begin working on those partnerships by the second half of the year.

Management changes will also follow: Raseedi will hire a managing director to lead Kashat. It will also be tapping personnel in the credit and risk management positions, Atalla said.

What they said: “The ability to easily lend money to the masses will be expanded, and Raseedi along with Kashat, through its subsidiary Pharos Microfinance, will become Egypt’s only financial service provider to offer nano loans at scale; and that was purpose built for the task. This deal is important because the companies involved are true big data and artificial intelligence players, and are both home-grown,,” our friend Karim Nour, co-founder and CEO of Kashat, said in the statement.

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