Egyptian investment app Thndr nabs $20M

The MENA region has about 400 million people with $500 billion in annual savings. But as a relatively young population, most of them have minimal equity market and investment exposure.

Replicating the success of Robinhood in the U.S., some platforms are looking to create investors out of the region. One such is Egypt-based Thndr. The company has raised a $20 million Series A round to democratize investing in the Middle East and North Africa.

In developed markets such as the U.S. and Europe, up to half of the population invests in financial instruments. However, people in developing markets such as North Africa and the Middle East are underserved, with less than 3% actively investing in financial assets across the region.

A common reason for poor investment penetration in MENA is that opening a brokerage account is expensive. Thndr, launched in late 2020 by Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr, is filling the gap by making it easier to open and manage investment accounts, consequently replacing traditionally slow and outdated processes by incumbents.

“The first investment that 75% of our users have done was with less than $500. Without Thndr, these people wouldn’t even be able to open a brokerage account elsewhere because this is much less than the minimum account balances needed to open an account,” chief operating officer Amr told TechCrunch over a call.