Former Microsoft and Uber engineer Khalid Ashmawy just raised $3 million for Munify, a cross-border neobank targeting Egypt's massive diaspora. The Y Combinator-backed startup promises instant money transfers home at a fraction of traditional costs, tapping into a $30 billion annual remittance market that's ripe for digital disruption.
The remittance problem hit Khalid Ashmawy personally when he was a master's student in Stuttgart, watching $40 fees eat into every $400 wire transfer home to Cairo. Three business days later, his family would finally receive the money. Fast-forward through stints at Microsoft and Uber, and the experience hadn't improved much. Now Ashmawy's fighting back with Munify, a cross-border neobank that just closed $3 million in seed funding to revolutionize how Egyptians abroad send money home. The Y Combinator Summer 2025 graduate stands out as one of the few non-AI startups in an otherwise AI-dominated cohort, proving that solving urgent financial infrastructure problems still resonates with Silicon Valley's top accelerator. "Banking wasn't built for people like me. It's very costly, takes a long time, and is fragmented," Ashmawy told TechCrunch in an interview. "It's a problem I have personally experienced and one that resonates with a lot of people who want to send money back home quickly and efficiently." Egypt represents one of the world's largest remittance markets, with nearly $30 billion in annual inflows according to research from the Institute for Security Studies. Yet the market remains dominated by legacy players like Western Union and MoneyGram, creating a massive opportunity for digital-first competitors. Munify's timing couldn't be better, launching just as similar platforms gain traction in other emerging markets. Nigeria's LemFi recently raised $53 million to expand its remittance services, while India's Aspora secured $50 million for similar solutions targeting the Indian diaspora. Ashmawy's journey to fintech entrepreneur wasn't direct. After completing two master's degrees in Germany and Switzerland, he spent seven years climbing the engineering ladder at tech giants and . In 2019, he left to co-found , a Founders Fund-backed proptech platform focused on Middle Eastern mortgages, where he served as CTO until 2022. "The main reason why we're different is that we're building our own rails and directly connecting the banking systems across different countries," Ashmawy explained to . The platform, which soft-launched just two weeks ago, is already seeing thousands of sign-ups through word-of-mouth adoption. Munify operates on a dual-sided model serving both consumers and businesses. For individuals, it offers instant money transfers to Egypt at competitive rates, plus U.S. banking access for Middle Eastern residents using only local IDs. The business side provides APIs for cross-border payments, with Ashmawy claiming contracts representing over $50 million in projected monthly volume. The startup generates revenue through foreign exchange spreads, interchange fees, and payment flows. The company's acceptance proves that solving fundamental infrastructure problems can still cut through Silicon Valley's AI obsession. "If you're solving a big and urgent problem, that's what really matters, regardless of whether the current wave is AI or something else," Ashmawy noted. The accelerator has historically backed financial infrastructure plays from Stripe to Coinbase, with remittances representing a consistent focus area for emerging market startups. Beyond , the $3 million round includes participation from regional investors BYLD and DCG. Ashmawy plans to use the funding to expand beyond Egypt into other Middle Eastern markets, gradually building interconnected regional banking infrastructure.
