Zenda, a UAE-based FinTech focusses on family finance management, has raised $9.4m in seed funding.
According to a report by TechCrunch, the round saw participation from STV, COTU Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and VentureSouq.
Zenda said it is on a mission the help families thrive. Through its app, Zenda allows parents to pay fees directly to schools, whilst streamlining collections by enabling schools to accept and manage payments online. This means that parents no longer need to provide bank deposit slips as proof of payment because all transactions on Zenda happen in real-time. The startup also has an embedded financing option that extends tuition fee credit to parents on a flexible repayment structure.
Zenda was founded in June 2021 by Raman Thiagarajan and Haseeb Ahmed. The duo also founded nexquare, a management and data analytics systems for schools, educators and regulators.
Thiagarajan said, “With all the knowledge we have from our previous venture, we understand the education sector. And so, we have a parent-facing app… we also deeply integrate into educational institutions to remove the friction for both the parents and the schools.”
He added that since its launch, Zenda’s users have increased 20 times, with the app reaching over $100m in annual contracted payment volumes by the close of last year. And the startup is eyeing greater growth this year as it accelerates its expansion beyond the UAE using the new funding, which will also support the refinement of its product.
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