Egyptian Payment Firm, Fawry, Hits Unicorn Status With Market Cap of $1 bn

Fawry, an Egyptian electronic payments company can now be referred to as a unicorn company after the company reached a market cap of $1 billion. This announcement was made on LinkedIn post by Mohamed Okasha, Fawry’s former Managing Director.

Ashraf Sabry and Mohamed Okasha founded Fawry in 2009. It offers digital payments to companies and individuals in Egypt, where the population is mostly unbanked. The company started its regional expansion starting with UAE earlier this year.

Commenting on the news, Okasha said “This is a super exciting time for Egyptian fintech.

For Fawry to reach a market cap of $1 billion within one year of its IPO is quite impressive and is a moment to celebrate. This will help the whole industry and will open more doors for fintech to receive funds and make partial exits.”

Fintechs and electronic banking companies have seen a huge increase in demand as a result of the pandemic. Fawry saw an increase of more than 50% of the company’s value before the Covid-19 crisis. This number grew exponentially during the crisis.

The company went public on the Egyptian Exchange in August 2019, since then its stock price has increased by over 300%. The initial cost of one share at the company was EGP 6.46.

According to Fawry’s website, it handles around 2.1 million transactions daily and collected $2.43 billion last year. It has approximately 20 million customers.

Interestingly, Jumia which was one of the first companies to hit unicorn status in Africa has since dropped from that exalted position.