Having successfully closed a US$1 million seed round in February, Uzbek Islamic fintech start-up IMAN is now seeking up to US$3 million in investment to support its vision of bridging decentralized finance and traditional finance to establish a digital gateway between Muslim investors in developed markets and Muslim shoppers in frontier markets.
IMAN, which runs mobile app IMAN Invest and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platform IMAN Pay, is currently serving the Uzbek market and has immediate plans to expand to Pakistan.
Over the last three months, the firm – founded by investment bankers Rustam Rahmatov and Mark Zubov – has disbursed over US$2 million in instalments, clocking in a 100% month-on-month growth. According to its pitch deck viewed by IFN Fintech, IMAN has attracted approximately US$1.8 million in peer-to-peer investment from 1,700 retail investors. App downloads have exceeded 50,000 and it has built a community of over 15,000 active Invest users. It has also onboarded over 130 merchants with over 300 point-of-sale outlets.
The US$1 million seed round was led by institutional investors based in Singapore and the US and was participated by the likes of Battery Road Digital Holdings, Tesla Capital, Uzcard Ventures, MyAsiaVC, Le Mercier’s Capital, Block0, Vector Crypto Capital and IT-Park Investments. The funding provided the Islamic fintech start-up with a runway through August 2022. The post-seed round will be used to extend the runway as well as facilitate IMAN’s entry into Pakistan.