Cassbana

Founded in 2020, Cassbana is a Cairo-based financial technology company aiming to address the significant financial inclusion gap in Egypt. The company was established by Haitham Nassar, a former executive at Careem, along with Mohamed Tarek and Mostafa Barakat. Nassar's background includes over 14 years in the telecom and tech industries, with key managerial roles at Careem Egypt and Telecom Egypt, providing him with a foundation to tackle the challenges of serving unbanked populations.

Cassbana operates by creating financial identities for individuals and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) that lack access to conventional banking services. It targets a substantial market, as a large portion of Egypt's population is unbanked. The core of its business is an AI-driven platform that analyzes behavioral data to generate credit scores. This allows the company to offer financial products and services to those who would otherwise be considered high-risk due to a lack of traditional financial data.

The company's primary product is a mobile application that facilitates inventory financing for nano and micro-retailers, such as grocery, cosmetics, and clothing stores. Through partnerships with distributors, Cassbana enables these small business owners to acquire inventory without immediate payment. Cassbana covers the upfront cost, and the business owner repays the amount in installments via the app. Successful and timely repayments improve a user's credit score, which in turn unlocks access to larger amounts of financing. Revenue is generated from interest rates on these financing solutions.

The company's journey has included notable milestones and challenges. In January 2021, Cassbana secured $1 million in a seed funding round led by Disruptech, with participation from other investors like MSA Novo, COTU Ventures, and Inclusive Fintech 50. However, the firm later faced significant operational headwinds after a crucial $2 million funding commitment from British International Investment (BII) was canceled. This led to a temporary pause in operations and the departure of co-founders Mohamed Tarek and Mostafa Barakat. Despite these setbacks, CEO Haitham Nassar has indicated that the company is actively seeking new funding to restart operations and pursue expansion plans.

Keywords: financial inclusion, fintech, Egypt, credit scoring, MSME financing, inventory financing, unbanked, alternative credit scoring, mobile lending, microfinance, artificial intelligence in finance, behavioral data analysis, emerging markets, nano-retailers, supply chain finance, financial identity, Cairo, Haitham Nassar, Disruptech, digital lending, Middle East finance