The archive · Money & Fintech · Product decision · 2018–2025
NymCard's card-rails bet pays off: QED's $33M Series B, the VC's first Gulf deal
NymCard bet MENA fintechs need a regulated, API-first card-issuing backbone; QED's $33M Series B in 2025 backed the bet.
NymCard
What the business is
NymCard is a banking-as-a-service issuer and processor: banks, fintechs, enterprises and telecoms plug into its nCore APIs to launch card programs, embedded lending and money movement across MENA.
Starting capital：$7.6M Series A led by Shorooq Partners (January 2021); $22.5M venture round led by DisruptAD, Reciprocal Ventures and Shorooq (June 2022), taking disclosed total above $35M; $33M Series B led by QED Investors (March 2025).
How it started
Lebanese entrepreneur Omar Onsi founded NymCard in Beirut in 2018 and relocated the company to Abu Dhabi's Hub71 in 2020, securing in-principle approval from ADGM's financial regulator. The thesis, per The National, was that card issuance and processing were tightly controlled, regulated and slow even for the region's largest banks, so fintechs needed a plug-and-play, regulated issuer.
What happened
In January 2021 NymCard raised a $7.6M Series A led by Shorooq Partners with OTF Jasoor Ventures and Venture Souq. In June 2022, DisruptAD (ADQ's venture platform), Reciprocal Ventures and Shorooq led a $22.5M venture round that pushed disclosed funding above $35M, with a presence in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Cairo and Karachi. In March 2025, QED Investors led a $33M Series B — its first investment in the Gulf and its largest in the region — joined by Lunate, Dubai Future District Fund, Mashreq Bank, Knollwood, Reciprocal, FJ Labs, Endeavor, Shorooq and Oraseya Capital.
How it ended up
Still scaling: NymCard reports it is the only embedded-finance platform in MENA that fully owns its processing and switching technology, operates across 10+ markets, counts 50+ banks, fintechs and enterprises as partners, and holds a license under the Central Bank of the UAE.
Background
NymCard, founded in Beirut in 2018 by entrepreneur Omar Onsi and relocated to Abu Dhabi's Hub71 in 2020, sells banking-as-a-service to MENA: banks, fintechs, enterprises and telecoms plug into its API platform to launch card programs instead of building their own issuing operations. The National reported in January 2021 that its $7.6M Series A, led by Shorooq Partners, would fuel expansion across the region.
The bet was that card issuance and processing — tightly controlled, regulated and slow even for the largest banks — could be industrialized as a plug-and-play regional utility. In Abu Dhabi, NymCard secured in-principle approval from ADGM's financial regulator in 2020, then expanded into BIN sponsorship, program management, compliance, FX and treasury, with a presence in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Cairo and Karachi by 2022.
Investors kept funding the rails bet. A June 2022 venture round led by DisruptAD (ADQ's venture platform), Reciprocal Ventures and Shorooq Partners added $22.5M, taking disclosed total funding above $35M. In March 2025, QED Investors led a $33M Series B — its first Gulf investment — joined by Lunate, Dubai Future District Fund, Mashreq Bank, Knollwood, FJ Labs, Endeavor and Oraseya Capital. NymCard said the capital would deepen its presence across 10+ MENA markets, where it claims 50+ partners and a fully owned processing and switching stack, nCore.
What has to be true
- Card issuance in MENA took months and required deep bank relationships; a regulated utility removed that barrier for the entire ecosystem.
- Renting one API-first backbone let fintechs focus on products while NymCard handled sponsorship, compliance and switching.
- Licenses created a moat: ADGM approval in 2020 and CBUAE licensing later are slow for competitors to replicate.
- Each round was led by a different heavyweight — Shorooq, then DisruptAD, then QED — so the infrastructure story kept clearing new bars.
What can be applied
Regulated infrastructure wins by removing a months-long bottleneck: instead of helping each fintech negotiate card issuance, NymCard built one compliant backbone the ecosystem could rent.
Aftermath
As of March 2025, NymCard is licensed under the Central Bank of the UAE, operates across more than 10 MENA markets and reports 50+ bank, fintech and enterprise partners. Its nCore platform is positioned as the only issuer processor in MENA that owns its processing and switching technology rather than licensing it from third parties, across three verticals: card issuing and processing, embedded lending and money movement. The QED round was framed as fuel for deepening in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt; no revenue, profitability or later figures had been published at the time of the round.
Sources
- Abu Dhabi-based FinTech Nymcard secures $7.6m in Series A funding
- UAE fintech NymCard raises $22.5 million
- Nymcard closes $33 million Series B led by QED Investors
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