Stories
Startups that emerge from the personal needs of their founders have a special place in the entrepreneurial world. You might have heard the phrase: “Entrepreneurs should solve the problems they personally face.” And the statement is quite insightful, for who would better understand a problem than the person suffering from it? And who would be more driven to solve it than the person facing it?
A few startups set out that way. Leader in online payment technology Stripe launched when its cofounder and CEO Patrick Collison felt the pain associated with accepting online payments (back in the day, of course), while Apoorva Mehta, co-founder of Instacart, a pioneering grocery delivery app, “felt the pain that grocery shopping is!”.
Accordingly, at Acasia Ventures, we get massively excited when we see founders coming to us with solutions to their own problems. That’s why when Himanshu Shrimali and Ismail Sarhank came to us and told us that the fintech solution they have devised was “not created for the market, but for us,” we listened intently. Himanshu and Ismail consider themselves the primary customers to their own solution. “We – as individuals – needed a fresh way to money,” Himanshu explains, “and we built it”.
Himanshu and Ismail are two banking and finance experts who were looking for a fresh way to save money. Himanshu has over two decades’ experience in banking and financial services space; his last banking role was as the Head of Digital Transformation at IBAG for Money Transfers and Head of Retail Banking at Arab African International Bank. Ismail has been working in the financial services industry for a decade now, last as the Deputy CEO of IBAG for Money Transfer Solutions.
The idea came from a persistent pain point. Besides the traditional savings accounts in banks, there are barely any savings options for people out there. Traditional money market funds are usually highly inaccessible to Egyptians due to the friction associated with the traditional channels. The friction takes a variety of forms, such as the need to visit (perennially crowded) physical bank branches, poor customer service and customer hand holding, longer cycle to purchase or redeem fund certificates with rigid time-windows, pre-requisites to open an account at the bank to be able to purchase the fund, high minimum investment requirement, banks’ (sometimes) inability to accept fresh money due to regulatory ceiling, etc.
Himanshu and Ismail decided to build their own savings vehicle. And thus, Menthum was born. Menthum is a B2B and B2C digital savings platform that provides individuals and companies an innovative way to invest in safe treasury bills (T-bills) through a money market fund. Licensed and regulated by Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) Menthum has launched the first digital money market fund in the country, partnering with a leading investment manager.
A quick explainer: Money market funds operate by investing in very short-term, high-quality debt instruments. The returns of a money market fund are closely linked to the short-term interest rates prevailing in the market. The fund carries very low risk, and is optimum for people looking for a vehicle to save their liquid funds safely.
“Menthum makes money market funds a superior savings tool for individuals and businesses,” Himanshu explains. Menthum has devised a neat customer experience with its easy-to-use mobile application and customer-centric approach. Individuals sign up on the Menthum mobile app using their mobile number and scanning their National ID, from which the app fetches the ID data automatically. After the Menthum team completes the KYC review process, the account is activated. The customers can add money to their Menthum account by transferring money from their account at any bank in Egypt. There’s no minimum amount restriction (as the team says: “All it takes is one pound!”). They can withdraw money any time from Menthum and transfer it back to their bank account, without any lock-in period. Money in a Menthum account is invested in a safe money market fund with returns that are almost twice as high as those of a typical savings bank account.
Menthum’s main differentiator and value proposition: Users can save money safely without any friction from the comfort of their home or office, earn high returns, withdraw it anytime without a lock-in period and directly transfer the money into their bank account through the app.
And it seems to be a big hit with the customers. Based on the customer feedback Menthum has gathered, some customers use the money for long-term saving, while others use it for holiday spend. Some use it to regularly save a small amount every few days to build the lump sum they need for their next big spend (be it a mobile phone, a car, school / college fees, etc.) while some others use it to temporarily park their substantial liquidity (for instance, generated from selling a property, or the proceeds of matured certificates of deposit (CDs)) until they decide and find a way to deploy in their next big outlay (like buying a new property or locking-in money for the new set of long-term CDs). “We felt that people are truly using our product to save and spend money in a savvy way,” Ismail concluded.
“Given Menthum’s solid team, the traction it has gained so far and its visionary roadmap, we firmly believe that the company could reshape the concept of savings tools in the country and tangibly contribute to Egypt’s financial inclusion mandate while providing alternative savings vehicles to a wide range of customer segments,” Acasia Ventures Managing Partner Aly El Shalakany said.
