Stories
When Menthum launched its digital solution in November 2022, the idea sounded simple: help ordinary Egyptians plan for their future and build a more secure financial life. Three years on, co‑founder and CEO Himanshu Shrimali can take pride in more than 130,000 customers saving close to EGP 2.5 billion of their hard-earned wealth with Menthum , and something he values more than anything else: a level of trust that lets users “sleep peacefully knowing their money is safe with Menthum.”
They have done this with virtually zero marketing spend.
Fixing a System Built for the Few
Himanshu has worked for over 15 years in Egypt’s financial sector. The spark for Menthum came from an Applied Banking course he was teaching at the American University in Cairo in 2020. Asking students to dissect how banks really serve customers made something obvious: the system does not deliver adequate customer value to most.
Most customers get very little in the way of real wealth‑building tools and sub-par returns on their money.
“The focus has been too much on institutions, corporates, and HNWIs,” he says. “A large section of our society is getting a raw deal or no deal at all.”
Menthum set out to rebalance that. The guiding principle was clear: anyone with a dream and a plan – whether they have one pound or ten million – should get the same quality of products and service.
A Digital Product Factory with Heart
Menthum calls itself a digital wealth management platform, but under the hood it combines two roles: a product factory and a digital distributor.
The journey started with Menthum Core, an instant money‑market style product that behaves like a smarter quasi‑savings account. From there, the team has layered on new building blocks: Menthum Dollar Fund for medium‑ to long‑term US dollar holdings; Menthum Goals, a goal‑based savings tool that helps users plan and rewards good habits; Menthum Grow, an index‑fund product giving a hassle-free exposure to the top 30 listed companies in Egypt; and Wealth Plus, a digital advisory layer that recommends how much to allocate between various asset classes and automatically rebalances based on market movement.
Growing to Billions Through Word of Mouth
The first few hundred users were friends and family. Then a transparent, real‑time referral program rewarded customers primarily on their referrals funding their accounts. Combined with a product that did what it promised, word of mouth took over.
“We’ve practically spent zero dollars on marketing,” Himanshu notes. “People tried us with 100 or 1,000 pounds, saw that we delivered what we said, and felt comfortable referring us to their friends and family.”
Today, Menthum manages close to EGP 2.5 billion (~$50m) and has reached an annualised gross‑profit run rate of over EGP 50 million (~$1m). With no traditional cost of goods sold, every incremental pound of revenue goes entirely to gross profit. Run with exemplary fiscal discipline, the company has been breaking even since early 2025.
Partners in Reimagining Wealth
Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has been a key catalyst of the story.
“Our relationship with the FRA started on a very strong note,” Himanshu says. “They’ve been proactive and supportive in shaping the idea, really meaning it when they say ‘Building Bridges, not Walls’.”
Menthum is now working on rolling out fully digital onboarding. That will unlock the next horizon: serving Egyptians abroad and connecting the diaspora to the country’s financial system without friction.
Changing Habits, One Goal at a Time
If the numbers show growth, the stories show impact. Himanshu tells of a friend who put his eight‑ and ten‑year‑old children on Menthum Goals to start saving for a 2026 trip. The amounts are small, but the mindset shift matters in a culture that often leans towards “buy now, pay later.”
Others use Menthum as an “out‑of‑sight, out‑of‑mind” savings pot, transferring 500 or 2,000 pounds a month away from their day‑to‑day spending accounts so they are not tempted to touch it. These micro‑habits are exactly what Menthum wants to encourage.
From Building a Product to Shaping an Industry
Despite skepticism around whether WealthTech can scale, Himanshu sees Menthum’s trajectory as part of a much larger global shift. As he explains, the hesitation many investors express comes from familiarity: they understand lending because of Klarna, they understand payments because of Stripe, but digital wealth management is still a relatively new category worldwide. Yet the evidence is already compelling. In India, Groww—once a small online mutual-fund platform—has become a $10 billion public company. In the U.S., Wealthfront has filed for IPO after transforming its business with a cash-management product that now generates the majority of its revenue. Even global giants like JPMorgan have acquired digital wealth players such as Nutmeg to catch up. The pattern is clear: traditional banks and asset managers, despite decades of experience, have struggled to build digital-first wealth solutions that truly understand the everyday customer. That gap is what new-generation platforms are filling—globally, and now in Egypt. “Menthum is not a clone of someone else’s model,” Himanshu says. “We’re building something in sync with global trends, at the same level as what’s emerging in the U.S., UK, India, and Canada.” Far from being an outlier, he believes Egypt is at the forefront of a category that is only now coming into its own—and Menthum is positioned to lead it.
The Road Ahead
Menthum is now in the midst of its next fundraising round to power its next phase. Over the coming 12–18 months, Himanshu’s goals are clear: triple wealth managed from about USD 50 million to around USD 150 million; triple annualised gross profit from about USD 1 million to USD 3 million; build a stronger brand through targeted, location‑based marketing; and launch new products including fractional real‑estate exposure and a payment layer so customers can both save and spend within the Menthum ecosystem.
The team has grown from two co-founders to more than 40 people and will expand further across tech, product, marketing and customer care.
Through all of this, one theme keeps coming back: transparency and trust.
“Customers can sleep peacefully knowing their money is safe with Menthum,” Himanshu says. “If we can keep that trust while helping more Egyptians build a better financial future, then all the hard work is worth it.”