Elevate, a Dubai-headquartered fintech, has secured $5 million in equity and debt in a pre-Series A funding round led by UAE’s Negma Group. The exact breakdown between equity and debt was not disclosed by Elevate, a startup backed by Y Combinator that previously received seed funding from Y Combinator, Global Founders Capital, Venture Souq, and Visa. To date, Elevate has raised a total of $10 million in equity and debt.
Founded in 2021, Elevate initially launched as a Sudanese fintech named Bloom, aiming to build a neobank for Sudan. However, last year, the company pivoted to offering global USD accounts to remote workers in emerging markets. Elevate began with a private beta for the Egyptian and Pakistani markets in late 2022, followed by a public launch earlier this year for these markets, as well as for Bangladesh and the Philippines.
Elevate offers U.S.-based banking services to non-U.S. residents through a partnership with Bangor Savings Bank, a 172-year-old FDIC-member bank in Maine. This partnership allows remote workers to receive their wages directly into their U.S. bank accounts, use their debit cards for purchases, and transfer funds to their domestic bank accounts at competitive rates.
Since its launch, Elevate has signed up over 150,000 users for its USD accounts. The platform is gaining traction as an alternative to Wise in these markets, where Wise has stopped accepting new signups. Elevate claims to offer more competitive exchange rates than both Payoneer and Wise in certain cases.
Elevate serves not only freelancers but also remote workers employed by international firms in Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. The startup has partnerships with leading freelancing platforms and payroll providers, such as Deel.
Co-founders Khalid Keenan and Youcef Oudjidane highlighted the surge of remote work enabled by platforms like Deel and Upwork, which has allowed talent from cities like Manila, Lahore, Cairo, and Dhaka to compete globally. They emphasized that the outdated system for receiving USD payments has posed significant challenges for remote workers.
“We’re grateful to our partners in supporting us in tackling the payment problem. We’re excited to continue growing in emerging markets while ensuring we prioritize compliance and managing risk in everything we do,” the co-founders added.
Elevate plans to use the newly raised funds to expand into five new markets later this year: Indonesia, South Africa, Vietnam, and Turkey.