Somali multimillionaire businessman Ismail Ahmed seeks funding at $5-billion valuation

The globally acclaimed fintech company WorldRemit is seeking to raise funding at a valuation of $5 billion ahead of a potential IPO, Bloomberg reported.

WorldRemit is a cross-border digital payments platform that provides international money transfer and remittance services in 130 countries and more than 70 currencies.

The London-based fintech startup was co-founded in 2010 by Somaliland-born British multimillionaire Ismail Ahmed, Catherine Wines and Richard Igoe. It launched first in Somaliland.

Anonymous insiders revealed that the company is in talks with investors over the latest funding round, although the deal has not yet been concluded and the terms still could change, media report.

Nevertheless, an IPO could potentially arrive as early as 2022.

Since WorldRemit launched in Somaliland*, diaspora remittances have grown significantly in the dysfunctional state, which relies heavily on money sent from abroad to run its economy.

As of 2020, the government recorded a 15-percent surge in diaspora remittances, amounting to $1.3 billion.

In April, Ahmed launched a $500-million (Sh54.2 billion) fund to support education, healthcare and infrastructure development in Somaliland through his Sahamiye Foundation.

The fintech company said at the time that the initiative would help Somaliland move past “traditional models of donor funding and towards a more entrepreneurial, scale-up approach.”

The Sahamiye Foundation is based in London and Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland.

Since its founding in 2010, WorldRemit has grown into a popular brand in the global space, particularly in Africa. It boasts more than 5.7 million customers.

For Ahmed, founding WorldRemit was the culmination of 20 years of experience in the money transfer industry and job-role with international lenders.

*Somaliland, or the Republic of Somaliland, is an unrecognized sovereign state in the Horn of Africa. Internationally, the country is still considered to be a part of Somalia.