Expansion to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a costly and complex challenge for global businesses thanks to fragmented regulations and banking systems. Dubai-based Fintech Fuse aims to simplify it with a cross-border payments API, raising $6.6 million in seed funding to make it happen.
Founded in 2023 by former co-founders of BVNK George Davis and CTO James Smith, Fuse says it is the first infrastructure-grade payment platform to offer a Virtual International Bank Account Number (IBAN) in the region. This is a product that Davis says is commonplace in Europe, but there are few in the entire Mena.
“We are currently the only provider of virtual Ivan in the Middle East,” Davis told TechCrunch. “It’s an over-commercialized product in Europe, but it simply didn’t exist here.”
Fuse’s core products include USD virtual accounts for cross-border money movements and Ivan of the Dirham religion for local UAE payments. This allows startups to offer first mile collections and last mile payments for international businesses without requiring them to set up local entities, handle their own FX, or navigate licenses.
Davis outlines two legacy options for global companies looking to move money into Mena. Local payment companies lacking scale, or often run without local licenses and rely on patchy partnerships.
Fuse is in the middle of a fully licensed infrastructure-grade platform that simplifies monetary movement across the Middle East using virtual Ivans and local payout rails. These options allow global businesses to operate locally without setting up local infrastructure or navigating regulatory deficits.
Most of Fuse’s clients are US, European and Asian companies who want to operate at MENA but do not have bank setup or licenses promptly.
Virtual Events for Work
One use case is the Record Employer (EORS). For example, US-based companies with employees in the UAE usually need to pay Dirham’s salary with the correct business name with a local bank account (which is difficult to obtain without a residence or license). Fuse solves this, issues a virtual van controlled by USD, allowing businesses to restock them and pay local salaries directly to designated beneficiaries in AED (Dirhams).
CEO George Davis said customers can “create unlimited evans in the final customer’s name and make local payments.” “These customers don’t have to be residents. They don’t have to have local entities. They can be anywhere in the world.”
Fuse currently serves more than 20 clients, including EOR, money transfer companies, crypto platforms, markets and PSPs. Clients include Dlocal, Remotepass, and platforms like Deel, Airbnb, and Etsy as they expand to Mena.
The UAE remains the anchor market for Hughes, but the platform supports wholesale foreign exchange for Indian and Chinese companies that allow direct payments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, and that requires funds to be repatriated via controlled corridors.
There are many startups in different regions with the same product, but Davis sees more similarities with visa-assisted currencycloud. Both offer virtual accounts, Forex and cross-border payments. “But currencycloud is global, but fuses are built for the Middle East,” he said.
And it’s impressive at the right time. Companies across MENA are simply not underserved. They are trading more than ever, due to the surge in e-commerce and digital payments. Davis believes that demand will create an unusual window for local infrastructure players to win.
“Global cross-border payments tend to be all markets for winners,” he said. “But to win, you need local experts, and that’s what we’re building.”
Experiences from Truelayer and Bvnk
So far, it’s working. Hughes processes hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter, increasing revenues of over 50% per month. In fact, Davis says Hughes made this quarter more than everything last year. The company makes money by charging a fee for each transaction.
Davis’s interest in resolving cross-border payments to the Middle East came from first-hand experience. At Truelayer, we helped expand FinTech to an open banking platform that pays from data aggregators and serves more than 100,000 companies. At Crypto Infrastructure Startup Bvnk, where he co-founded and served as Chief Product Officer, he saw how difficult it is for global companies to expand into the Middle East.
“We were using Stable Coins to help global businesses move money from emerging markets,” he said. “We felt the pain of getting into the Mena, and so were the other people I was advised to do so, which was what caused the fuse.”
He launched Hughes in 2023 with CTO James Smith, a longtime collaborator who led engineering at both Truelayer and Bvnk. The two currently lead a team of 12 people across engineering, product and compliance.
Northzone, a European multi-stage VC with support of Klarna and Spotify, led the $6.6 million round with participation from prominent angels including Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola and former President of Morgan Stanley Mena George Makhoul.
“The Fughes team is transforming payment infrastructure in one of the fastest growing markets in the world,” said Sanjot Malhi, partner at Northzone. “Mena’s ability to simplify complex cross-border flows is exactly what the region needs.”
Fuse plans to use Fresh Capital to grow its team, secure additional regional licenses, and expand its product suite beyond the UAE.
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