UAE-based fintech OCTA has closed a $2.25 million pre-seed round. The round was co-led by Quona Capital and Sadu Capital, with support from Sukna Ventures, Plus VC, 500 Global, and prominent angels including Pawel Iwanow, chief payments officer at Fresha, and Dom Monhardt, director of product design at Tap. Investors are participating. payment. Founded in early 2024 by Jon Santillan, Nupur Mitta, and Andrey Korchak, the OCTA platform automates the payment collection process for small and medium-sized businesses, improving cash flow management and reducing accounts receivable burden. OCTA recently expanded into the Saudi market.
press release:
OCTA, a fintech startup focused on innovating accounts receivable management for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), today announced the closing of a $2.25 million pre-seed round. The round was co-led by Quona Capital and Sadu Capital. The round also saw participation from Sukna Ventures, Plus VC, 500 Global, and prominent angel investors including Pawel Iwanow, Chief Payments Officer at Fresha, and Dom Monhardt, Director of Product Design at Tap Payments.
OCTA was founded in early 2024 by Jon Santillan, returning founder of 500 Global, and Nupur Mitta, formerly of BCG. They draw on their professional experience at Careem, with Jon selling his previous company and Nupur leading Careem Pay. Working with Andrey Korchak, former CTO of a fintech startup backed by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, they solved a key challenge for small businesses: improving cash flow management and reducing accounts receivable pain. I started.
“If you ask any business owner, they’ll tell you that collecting money isn’t just a financial issue; it’s a business issue,” Santillan says. “Delayed payments, managing multiple tools for invoicing, customer follow-up, disputes, access to finance, debt collection, these are the things that slow down growth.” Average B2B invoice in UAE 60% are late on payments, and businesses spend 40 days chasing up late payments. “Imagine trying to grow your business while constantly worrying about cash flow, dealing with disputes, and collecting outstanding payments,” Santillan says. “This is completely devastating to business growth.”
OCTA changes everything. The OCTA platform automates the process of collecting payments from the time the contract is signed until the cash is deposited in the company’s account. OCTA allows users to upload contracts and create invoices using templates, and OCTA takes care of the rest. The OCTA platform syncs with a company’s accounting software to track invoices and assign a collection score to each customer. Based on this, OCTA automates reminders and follow-ups and also offers financing options. In the event of a dispute, OCTA will review the contract to avoid routine back and forth. The platform helps businesses access financing quickly and also provides tools to efficiently recover debt.
“We are building a global company out of the Middle East, with an initial focus on Saudi Arabia, to change the way companies collect payments and manage cash flow,” Santillan said. Masu.
Since its inception, OCTA has helped process $28 million in receivables with clients such as Careem, Lean Technologies, Ogram, Money Hash, and Gameball. These technology-forward teams use OCTA to streamline their accounts receivable processes and reduce the time it takes to receive payments.
“Our investment in OCTA demonstrates our growing interest in a region that is highly committed to creating an innovative and inclusive fintech-enabling environment,” said the round. said Monica Brand Engel, co-founder and managing partner of Quona Capital, which co-led the project. With Sadhu Capital. “We couldn’t be more excited about OCTA’s potential to streamline accounts receivable collections with a sophisticated AI-driven platform that allows enterprise customers to focus on growth.”
“We are excited to invest in OCTA, a startup that aligns perfectly with Sadhu’s strategy of investing in early-stage B2B ventures led by experienced founders,” said Sadu Capital Partner, Qusay al-Saif said. “John, Nupur and Andrei have an impressive track record of building successful companies, and their deep expertise in fintech is evident in the innovative solutions they have developed at OCTA. Streamlining corporate accounts receivable management addresses critical pain points and unlocks the growth potential of local businesses. We are excited to support them on their journey with our co-lead partner, Quona Capital. We believe OCTA is poised to scale and make a global impact.”
“By addressing cash flow collection issues for small and medium-sized businesses and helping them unlock liquidity, we believe OCTA can address significant challenges in the market,” said Amal Dokhan.
Managing Partner of 500 Global. “500 Global, which supported John’s first company, strongly believes in OCTA’s founding team and their ability to scale this solution across markets.”
“As experienced founders with a clear vision, we were early supporters of John and Nupur.” We are excited to partner with them to make this happen,” said Asher Siddiqui, General Partner at Sukna Ventures. The data infrastructure layer allows small businesses to more easily manage their cash flow. ”
“This round is just the beginning,” Santillan added. “We are helping businesses across the Middle East stop manually tracking payments and collect them faster, freeing up time and money to grow their business.”