IKTOMI invests in APAYA through its Venture Catalyst program
· With its first investment into Apaya Group, IKTOMI has launched its Venture Catalyst program to support start-up growth across and between its principal geographies of APAC and MENA.
· APAYA is a no-code B2B SaaS that empowers digitally driven organizations to build, automate, and optimize payment flows with just a few clicks.
· Apaya was co-founded by Michael Tomlins, the former CEO of Infomedia. Apaya is headquartered in Dubai (UAE), with international growth and talent bases in Cape Town (SA), Beirut (Lebanon) and London (UK).
· Apaya is one of only 21 startups selected from a worldwide pool of 700+ startup candidates into the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Fintech Hive Global Accelerator in 2022.
IKTOMI invested an undisclosed amount of seed funding in Apaya and continues to support the company with UX/UI Optimisation through its Venture Catalyst program, providing practical execution to support scale.
Launched in 2022, Apaya provides no-code software for product teams to build world-class payments experiences - turning 3-month development projects into 3-minute tasks. The simplicity of the platform allows digitally driven organizations to quickly penetrate new markets, grow revenues, mitigate risks, and reduce costs — at scale.
Nader Sobhan, Co-Founder and Executive Director of IKTOMI | Design & Innovation said:
“It was clear to us that Apaya provided significant value to the world of payments through their keen focus on driving consistent tangible impact, from new market penetrations to scale. Apaya’s unique product unlocks flexibility and empowers everyone from start-ups and SMEs to enterprise and governments and we are proud to support them on their journey.
In the current economic climate, all companies are looking for solutions to help them scale growth and revenues whilst extending their financial runways. At IKTOMI we have designed our Venture Catalyst program to do this through a focus on practical execution. We are on the continued search for innovative projects that can offer similar impact across our territories of MENA and APAC.”
Michael Tomlins, CEO of Apaya commented:
“We are very pleased to see momentum build and are proud to have IKTOMI as a close strategic partner and investor, leveraging its execution strength of a leading agency along with its experience in building ventures. This partnership will help us accelerate our plans to scale across the region as we finalise our selection of investors and partners.
In the last quarter, we expanded our proposition into 4 new markets, added 12 best-in-class payment providers to our ecosystem and onboarded many sector-leading customers. We’re grateful for the ongoing support of IKTOMI and our existing investors as we expand across MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa and execute our ambitious growth plans for 2023."