The archive · Money & Fintech · Strategic decision · 2008–2020
Fawry's corner-shop bet: Egypt's first fintech IPO in 2019, billion-dollar cap by 2020
Founded 2008 to move Egypt's cash bill payments into shops and kiosks, Fawry listed on EGX in Aug 2019 and passed a $1B market cap a year later.
Fawry
What the business is
A payment network of 100,000+ physical service points across 300 Egyptian cities — shops, kiosks, post offices, ATMs — where people pay bills and top up wallets in cash.
Starting capital：2015 buyout by Helios Investment Partners, MENA Long-Term Value Fund and Egyptian-American Enterprise valued at $100M; 2019 IPO raised EGP 1.64B (~$100M).
How it started
Ashraf Sabry and Mohamed Okasha founded Fawry in Cairo in 2008, betting that Egyptians who paid everything in cash would adopt electronic payments if the point of payment was their neighborhood shop. By the 2019 listing it offered over 250 electronic payment services through more than 100,000 service points in 300 cities.
What happened
In 2015 a consortium of Helios Investment Partners, MENA Long-Term Value Fund and Egyptian-American Enterprise acquired 85% of Fawry at a $100M valuation. In August 2019 Fawry listed on the Egyptian Exchange — the first Egyptian IPO of the year — priced at EGP 6.46, raising EGP 1.64B (~$100M) after the private placement was oversubscribed 16x and the public offer 30x. Shares closed the first day at EGP 8.48, up 31%, a market cap near EGP 6B ($366M). COVID-19 then accelerated the shift it had been building for: H1-2020 revenue grew 47% year-on-year to EGP 549M, and between the debut and August 2020 the stock rose over 300%, taking Fawry's intraday market cap past $1B — Egypt's first technology company to get there.
How it ended up
Still running and compounding. FY2024 revenue grew 68.4% to EGP 5.51B (~$121.6M) with a record 29.2% net profit margin; total throughput hit EGP 601.7B (~$13.3B) across 1.93B transactions on 372,400 POS terminals. Fawry is diversifying into lending (EGP 3.1B loan book) and banking services, still led by founder-CEO Ashraf Sabry.
Background
Fawry was founded in 2008 by Ashraf Sabry and Mohamed Okasha on a contrarian reading of Egypt's economy: instead of building an app that asked people to abandon cash, build the network that lets them keep using cash while payments move onto rails. The result was a countrywide web of over 100,000 service points — corner shops, kiosks, post offices, ATMs — where Egyptians pay electricity bills, mobile top-ups and 250+ other services. By the time Fawry listed, it covered 300 cities.
The turning point was the August 2019 IPO on the Egyptian Exchange, the country's first IPO of the year and its only listed tech firm. Priced at EGP 6.46, the offer was oversubscribed 16x in the private placement and 30x publicly, raising EGP 1.64B (~$100M); shares closed day one up 31% at EGP 8.48, valuing the eleven-year-old company near $366M. A year later, with COVID-19 pushing Egyptians away from physical offices, Fawry's H1-2020 revenue rose 47% to EGP 549M and its stock climbed over 300% from the debut, carrying the cap past $1B — Egypt's first billion-dollar tech company.
The bet has kept compounding since. In FY2024 Fawry processed 1.93B transactions worth EGP 601.7B (~$13.3B) across 372,400 POS terminals, with revenue up 68.4% to EGP 5.51B and a record 29.2% net margin. The original bill-payment business has fallen to 31% of revenue as Fawry pushes into banking services, SME tools and an EGP 3.1B microfinance loan book, still under the founding CEO.
What has to be true
- Cash was the incumbent in Egypt. Fawry put terminals where Egyptians already transacted, so adoption needed no habit change.
- Scarcity made the IPO cheap capital: as the only listed tech company, Fawry gave investors their first e-payments play; the retail offer was 30x oversubscribed.
- COVID-19 accelerated a shift Fawry had built since 2008. With physical banking unsafe, its 100,000+ point network was ready; H1-2020 revenue grew 47%.
- Network effects compound: every new biller (250+) makes kiosks more valuable, and every kiosk makes Fawry the default channel; by 2024 it processed nearly 2B transactions yearly.
What can be applied
Don't fight cash — meet it halfway. Fawry digitized payment flows while keeping cash as the accepted tender at the neighborhood point of sale; the physical network was the product, not the app.
Aftermath
As of mid-2026 Fawry is Egypt's payments incumbent. FY2024 brought EGP 5.51B revenue, 372,400 POS terminals, 1.93B transactions, a myFawry consumer app with 17.34M cumulative downloads, and an EGP 3.1B loan book through Fawry Microfinance — which in April 2026 secured an EGP 250M facility from the EBRD for youth-led MSME lending. MENAbytes described the 2024 results as record-setting, with CEO Ashraf Sabry citing a 49.9% EBITDA margin, the company's highest since inception.
Sources
- Egypt's Fawry goes public with shares soaring 31% on first day, taking market cap to ~$366 million
- Egypt's Fawry is now a billion-dollar company
- Fawry's 2024 revenue soars 68% to EGP 5.5 Billion, net profit jumps 125%
- EBRD extends EGP 250m facility to Fawry Microfinance to boost youth-led enterprises
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe what you are building, and see who is betting on the same thing.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card