valU, a MENA Buy-Now, Pay-Later (BNPL) lifestyle-enabling FinTech platform, acquires a minority stake in Egypt’s FinTech startup, Kiwe, a youth social payment app that facilitates onboarding the unbanked youth segment in Egypt.

Kiwe aims to use the investment to enhance growth by expanding its financial product offerings to the unbanked youth segment and increasing its merchant network to be more widespread across Egypt.

This marks the first investment for Kiwe this year which is planning to fundraise a seed round in the coming months.

“This strategic investment in Kiwe comes as a natural step to further bolster our portfolio of financial services by extending more innovative solutions to MSMEs and young people. Serving these segments allows us to reach a larger population, ensuring that we are alleviating financial hassles, driving financial inclusion, and contributing to greater convenience for millions of customers. With its unique offering and simplified, engaging user experience, Kiwe will greatly benefit from leveraging our vast and ever-growing network of vendors,” Habiba Naguib, Head of Strategy and Market Expansion at valU, said.

Kiwe’s FinTech solutions attract young people allowing them to easily collect, send, and spend money electronically. It also offers small businesses and startups a digital, simple, and cost-efficient payment platform, with the goal of alleviating the daily financial struggles faced by young entrepreneurs doing business.

Kiwe recently partnered with Klickit to provide educational entities with a cashless payment system and reach more underserved communities of students who lack adequate understanding and possession of financial tools to facilitate daily payments.