Will the UAE’s Bridg revolutionize the way we pay in the Middle East and the developing world?
Bridg cofounders Moussa Beidas, left and Nadim Jarudi, right
won a very welcome 20,000 euros at the 2015 GCC Pitch Challenge
Final. (Images Via GCC Pitch Challenge)
It’s go time for Bridg
cofounders Moussa Beidas and Nadim Jarudi. The Dubai-based
duo is in the process of finalizing their payment app, scheduled to
launch on iOS, Android and Windows in the second half of
2015.
They’re also in the midst of sourcing some much
needed funding. Having been bootstrapping since the beginning of
their journey, they’re now in the process of raising $700,000 for
the company.
So their recent win at the 2015 GCC
Pitch Challenge Final has no doubt come in very handy.
Palestinian-American Beidas, 30, and Lebanese-American Jarudi, 32,
battled it out with 11 other startups to walk away with the top
prize of EUR 20,000 ($22,670). Ozan Sonmez, who
covered the event, wrote that “their concept was
so interesting that people lined up during a break to see Bridg’s
working prototype”.
Catching up with Beidas this month, he tells
Wamda that receiving the top prize has given the team a vote of
confidence.
“Our win definitely gives us the exposure we
needed,” he says. “Plus, the reassurance that our idea wasn’t a bad
one.”
And the cofounders, along with CTO Sultan Saadat
may be onto something that could revolutionize the way we spend in
the GCC and beyond. Bridg is a mobile-to-mobile payment platform
that allows users to pay with their Bluetooth-enabled device
without the need of a data connection.
Beidas explains how it all came
about.
“During my tenure at a branding consultancy, we
had the opportunity to listen to the challenges facing decision
makers on a regional level,” he says. “The banking and telecom
industries were unique in that they both are ready to progress to
the next level. We saw them as parallel industries that could lend
each other a hand. So we decided to build Bridg.
“There is no need to acquire any extra hardware
or do any costly integration; just download, sign up and start
paying.”
Not to be mixed with the US-based company of the same
name – “There’s no relation and we’re not worried
about the confusion as it is in a different industry,” Beidas
points out – Bridg aims to facilitate payments in the region,
eliminating the need for card machines on the go, for
instance.
Bridg cofounder Moussa Beidas discusses his company’s payment
innovation at the 2015 GCC Pitch Challenge.
Having it work via Bluetooth means that users
can pay from home, on the move, or even in the air, since it is
also set to become the first mobile payment solution to work in
flight mode.
“We are working on partnering with the region’s
most popular low-cost carriers to make sure that food wagon makes
it to your row,” Bridg’s website claims.
Once launched, it could be a massive game
changer for the industry here. After all, it would eliminate the
need for an internet/data connection or even a smartphone, since
Bluetooth is available on nearly any type of mobile
phone.
Beidas continues: “We built Bridg with the
intention of removing the barrier of entry for any type of merchant
to accept cashless payments in any industry. In the second half of
this year we plan to launch Bridg with a merchant in the UAE,
followed by plans to launch in emerging markets soon
after.”
Launching the project didn’t come without its
challenges.
“Our team was the main focus, as it required a
team willing to take the plunge,” he says. “Amongst us, we
freelanced as designers and app developers, and this helped us
bootstrap our way through our initial growth.
“We constantly are facing challenges on multiple
facets, but we knew this before starting the company.
At the core of it all, Bridg targets developing markets
with huge populations of smartphone users which are predominantly
unbanked and/or unconnected.
“With antiquated banking regulations, any form
of disruption is considered a threat despite Bridg being an
enabler. Whatever industry issues we want to solve we need to go
through a process of change management to educate our
customers.”
Despite the roadblocks, Beidas and his team have
set some ambitious goals.
“In five years’ time, we want to be in a
majority of the emerging markets; not only processing offline
payments, but solving problems that existing solutions for Western
markets never focused on.
“Our goal from the beginning was to build
something of lasting value.”
Readers
interested in receiving the early release of Bridg can register
here.
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