Astra Tech's Botim ultra-app bet: $500M G42 round, 90M users, fintech-first by 2025

UAE consumer-tech company Astra Tech runs Botim, an app combining VoIP calls and messaging with payments, recharges, bill pay, money transfers and on-demand services, assembled by acquiring Botim, PayBy and Rizek.

That MENA users would consolidate calls, payments, shopping and services into one 'ultra app', with Botim's 90M registered users as the distribution to win it.

$500M fundraising led by Abu Dhabi's G42, announced December 2022 after a $490M tranche in July 2022 that funded the PayBy acquisition.

Astra Tech was founded in early 2022 by Abdallah Abu Sheikh, the Jordanian serial entrepreneur behind Rizek, Barq and Bark EV. Its strategy was unusual for the region: raise large capital, hire a strong tech team, and acquire proven consumer apps to assemble an 'ultra platform' that would fight the 'platform fatigue' of scattered digital services.

In July 2022 Astra Tech raised $490M and acquired the Emirati fintech PayBy the next month. In December 2022 it announced a $500M round led by Abu Dhabi's AI group G42, and in January 2023 it acquired Botim — the region's leading VoIP app, founded in 2018 by Lei Guo and Renjian Zhou, with 90M registered and 25M monthly active users — to relaunch it as an ultra app with bill payments, government services and food and grocery ordering.

Still running and expanding: in October 2025 Astra Tech rebranded PayBy as 'botim money', adding transfers, prepaid cards, Send Now Pay Later micro-lending and investments, plus a business arm; botim reported over 150M users globally. In 2026 it integrated Microsoft Azure voice AI as it pushes a fintech-first, AI-native strategy.

It bought distribution instead of building it: Botim was already the region's leading VoIP app with 90M registered users, so the ultra app launched with a massive, trusted base.

Regulated fintech was acquired, not invented: PayBy's payment-provider and stored-value licenses let botim money offer transfers, cards and lending without a long licensing runway.

G42's $500M backing gave it both capital and an AI ecosystem, funding later moves like Microsoft Azure voice integration.

Chat is high-frequency: communication was the hook that could convert daily conversations into financial transactions, which is exactly the fintech-first path the company took.

Own the distribution before the features: Botim's 90M users let Astra layer payments onto an app people opened daily, and PayBy's licenses turned chat trust into financial scale.

As of September 2, 2026, botim remains Astra Tech's flagship ultra app and is still scaling: over 150M users globally, including 8.5M+ in the UAE, as of early 2026. The October 2025 'botim money' rebrand consolidated PayBy's licensed fintech — transfers, prepaid cards, Send Now Pay Later, investments — under one brand, and a January 2026 Microsoft Azure voice-AI integration made financial services conversational. Astra Tech continues to operate privately within the G42 ecosystem, competing for the Gulf's digital wallet.