Arab Finance: MENA-based fintech Sovra has raised more than $2 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Pharsalus Capital, with participation from angel investors, including Naguib Sawiris.

The startup will capitalize the investment to expand its engineering and product teams ahead of its public launch while operating with a distributed team across the Middle East and Europe.

Founded by Ahmad Wehbi, the startup allows users to hold digital dollars, earn yield, send money globally within seconds, and spend through card payments accepted worldwide.

Directly from their mobile phones, Sovra users can hold digital dollars, earn yield, send money globally in seconds, and spend with a card that works anywhere.

Dollar balances are denominated in USDC, a regulated US dollar-based stablecoin issued by Circle, an NYSE-listed SEC-regulated company, and audited by Deloitte, where there is one real US dollar in reserve for every digital dollar in circulation, fully verifiable.

Sovra also offers access to a broader ecosystem of financial services, including integration with third-party decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that allow users to generate returns on their digital dollar holdings.

Ahmad Wehbi, Founder and CEO of Sovra, said: “There has always been something between people and their money;  a bank, a border, a fee, a policy, a form. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it took everything. The technology to remove the middleman now exists.”

Wehbi added: “Sovra is the simplest way in. Your money works for you and answers only to you. If we disappear tomorrow, it’s still there. That’s not a company policy alone, but the architecture we have built for Sovra.”