News

Pyypl Growth To Accelerate After $20 Million Investment

The Abu Dhabi-based financial platform continues to go from strength to strength, with sights set on a huge regional expansion.

Published

4 years ago

November 7, 2022

Nour Nasir

pyypl growth to accelerate after $20 million investment

Pyypl (pronounced “people”), the Middle East and Africa-focused financial services platform, has just secured $20 million in Series B funding from international investors, as well as ten of its existing backers.

Since being founded in 2017, the Hub71 member has raised nearly $40 million in investment capital. This recent financing round will help the platform increase its reach even deeper into the MEA region.

As the company develops what’s known as “Pyypl 2.0”, new features and proprietary technology will also be built to enhance user experience and help scale in new markets and business verticals. Pyypl is led by a skilled management team with a proven track record and is now one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in the region, quadrupling its user base and transaction volumes in just 12 months.

Pyypl has established key partnerships since its foundation, and now boasts a mature and expansive financial ecosystem that includes Visa, several payment gateway partners, Ripple, and Binance. Based in Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem, Pyypl also gains access to a wide-ranging network of partners and benefits from a strong local talent base.

Also Read: Paymob Announces New UAE Regional Hub

The combination of proprietary technology, an experienced management team, and a unique multi-product approach is paying dividends for the startup, which seems to have been founded at the exact right time to benefit from the region’s growing tech landscape. The ecosystem boasts “internationally accepted virtual and physical prepaid cards, instant domestic and international user-to-user transfers as well as remittances to 38 currency destinations”, with plenty of additional features being added to the roadmap.

“We welcome our new investors and appreciate the further investment from our existing shareholders to support our financial inclusion journey. We have grown significantly since our Series A round and are excited to enter the next phase of growth and capability. This is just the beginning,” says Antti Arponen, co-founder and CEO at Pyypl.

Pyypl’s platform offers key financial services via a single app, and could benefit up to 800 million financially underserved smartphone users across Africa and the Middle East.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

5 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.