Egyptian Raises $2.3 Million in San Francisco to Establish Digital Bank

By: Yassmine ElSayed

CAIRO, Feb. 4 (SEE) - An Egyptian residing at the US, raised $2.3 million in seed funding from different investors including Digital Horizon Capital, Cynthia Chen, and Endure Capital, the cross-border VC with offices in the United States and Egypt, for Oxygen, a San Francisco-based fintech startup, founded by him.

Founded in 2017 by Hussein Ahmed, Oxygen is a digital bank focused on freelancers, offering them access to different banking services and credit – which is not very easy to come by for this very large segment of digital economy.

Speaking about his inspiration to start Oxygen, Ahmed, founder and CEO of the startup told ‘TechCrunch’ that when he tried to take a loan from LendingClub, they couldn’t verify his income and then asked him for ten pages of documentation because he was a freelancer.

Oxygen doesn’t charge fees for taking a loan but has a monthly membership fee of $29.99 for users who draw down their credit limit, he said.  "If you aren’t using the cash reserve then you aren’t paying the monthly fee", he added.

Once a user has their account, they can request the funds anytime through Oxygen’s mobile apps and draw them instantly to their Oxygen debit card.

Oxygen changes all of that. The freelancers can easily sign up on the platform to open their federally insured bank account and receive a Visa© debit card after their identity has been verified. The startup, per their website, allows users to connect their old bank accounts so it can have a look at the financials and offer access to Oxygen Loans.

Having graduated from Combinator’s accelerator program last year, Oxygen was launched in November, and witnessed a MoM growth rate of 80% since launching.

Their services are currently available in California only but the startup plans to cover all 50 states and eventually expand to Europe and Asia.