zenda, the Middle East’s first fintech app for school fee, has raised $9.4 million in an oversubscribed seed round.
zenda currently addresses issues with school fee payment, specifically the lack of convenience and flexibility in payment alternatives for parents and poor payment collection for schools.
Raman Thiagarajan and Haseeb Ahmed, both alumni of McKinsey & Company, formed zenda in June 2021. Raman oversaw the firm’s Financial Services Practice in the MENA area.
zenda is the creators’ second start-up, and it builds on their previous Ed-tech venture’s significant insights and knowledge.
The market is vast, but mostly untapped, with around US$37 billion in fee payments to private educational institutions processed annually in the GCC, US$34 billion in the remainder of the Middle East and Africa, and US$70 billion in India.
Fee payments in schools (nurseries, K12, and postsecondary) are largely non-digital, and even when they are, they are inconvenient, manual, and costly.
In addition, while the majority of families earn monthly, school fees are frequently paid termly or bi-annually, causing cash flow issues for parents and collecting delays for schools.
Families can use zenda to keep track of dues and make payments using a variety of pay-now and pay-later options, as well as earn prizes for paying on time.
zenda interfaces with schools using its own data model and APIs (similar to zapier) to reduce last-mile reconciliation issues and delays.
CEO and founder of zenda, Raman Thiagarajan said, “In today’s digital world, we seek low friction and immediacy – why should that not be the case for fee payments? Part of the ecosystem still runs on cash or cheque with no convenient option to pay later.
Since our launch, feedback from the market and especially from our users has been terrific – we are grateful & pumped with the response from parents and seeing how they have embraced our service. zenda schools are witnessing a systematic increase in their collections. We have a truly outstanding team and I feel privileged that such a passionate group is with us on this journey.
We are excited and hopeful for the possibilities ahead – in providing customer-centric digital financial services to solve some of the simple yet important problems for families in our regions”
To read our blog on “Pakistani Fintech startup, SadaPay, raises funds for large-scale launch,” click here.
