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CSG Celebrates Milestone Implementation of Its Award-Winning Revenue Management SaaS Solution on AWS

CSG

CSG ® (NASDAQ: CSGS) helps the world’s most innovative companies ease the complexity of business transformation through innovative customer engagement, revenue management and payments solutions. Today at Mobile World Congress, the company celebrated its 25 th successful cloud revenue management solution implementation with CBTS, a division of Cincinnati Bell. This latest implementation hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) further solidifies CSG’s experience in delivering secure, scalable and agile software as a service (SaaS) business support systems (BSS) technologies that support the delivery of next-gen digital services. “Over the past decade, CSG has built the cloud revenue management market through collaborative innovation and flawless execution on AWS,” said Chad Dunavant, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at CSG. “Our work with forward-thinking brands, like CBTS, highlights our technical expertise and strategic vision to create extraordinary experiences not only for our customers, but for our customers’ customers. In this highly competitive age of converged connectivity, we have set the standard for how communications service providers can seamlessly build and offer dynamic, compelling digital services, while opening the doors to future-ready opportunities.” Recognized as an advanced tier AWS ISV Accelerate Partner, CSG delivers high-level customer experiences for global brands, revenue growth at scale, and infrastructure cost savings. The use of CSG’s award-winning, cloud-based solution on AWS helps companies launch and scale new digital services quickly to meet the ever-rising demands of today’s connected consumer economy and stay a step ahead for future growth. “CBTS continuously evolves to better serve the changing needs and demands of our customers in the digital age,” said Shannon Mullen, Senior Vice President of Administrative Services at CBTS. “To meet and exceed these expectations, we are investing in tools, processes and technology to deliver exceptional experiences to our customers. Choosing CSG provides the foundation for achieving this goal. Not only does the solution give us the flexibility, convenience and efficiencies we need to scale our operations and meet our growth goals, but CSG’s customer-centric culture and strong reputation made it the clear choice for our business.” “Working together, CSG and AWS make it easier for telecommunications companies to transform and modernize their BSS stacks” said Antonello Arpino, Principal BSS Business Development Manager at AWS. “Using SaaS solutions developed on AWS, telecommunications companies can accelerate their transformation journeys. CSG’s expertise in implementing 25 BSS SaaS implementations on AWS will help telcos of any size address the complexity of BSS transformation and turn it into a competitive advantage.” CSG’s portfolio of digital monetization solutions deliver best-in-breed SaaS technology that drive digital commerce innovation and create extraordinary customer experiences. To learn more about CSG on AWS, visit: www.csgi.com/portfolio/csg-and-amazon-web-services/ # # # About CSG CSG is a leader in innovative customer engagement, revenue management and payments solutions that make ordinary customer experiences extraordinary. Our cloud-first architecture and customer-obsessed mindset help companies around the world launch new digital services, expand into new markets, and create dynamic experiences that capture new customers and build brand loyalty. For 40 years, CSG’s technologies and people have helped some of the world’s most recognizable brands solve their toughest business challenges and evolve to meet the demands of today’s digital economy with future-ready solutions that drive exceptional customer experiences. With 5,000 employees in over 20 countries, CSG is the trusted technology provider for leading global brands in telecommunications, retail, financial services, and healthcare. Our solutions deliver real world outcomes to more than 900 customers in over 120 countries. To learn more, visit us at csgi.com and connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter. Copyright © 2022 CSG Systems International, Inc. and/or its affiliates (“CSG”). All rights reserved. CSG® is a registered trademark of CSG Systems International, Inc. All third-party trademarks, service marks, and/or product names which are referenced in this document are the property of their respective owners, and all rights therein are reserved. Contact Details CSG Tammy Hovey +1 917-520-2751 tammy.hovey@csgi.com Company Website https://www.csgi.com

March 01, 2022 04:00 AM Mountain Standard Time

Testsigma raises $4.6M from Accel and STRIVE to launch open source test automation platform

Stockwood Strategy

With a mission to make test automation simple and scalable, Testsigma has secured a $4.6M seed funding led by Accel and STRIVE, with participation from BoldCap and a host of well known entrepreneurs and operators. These include Shanmugam Krishnasamy, co-founder and CTO of Freshworks; Kiran Darisi, co-founder and VP of engineering at Freshworks; Parsuram Vijayasankar, co-founder and principal engineer at Freshworks; Vetri Vellore, CEO of Ally.io; Nitesh Banta, CEO at B12; Ioann Fainsilber, Co-Founder at Pintek, and others. With an increasing focus on automation and DevOps, software delivery is faster than ever before. Automated testing is essential for balancing software quality with the accelerated velocity of release cycles, but because the toolchain that is supposed to enable automated testing has many moving parts, test automation becomes a parallel development project in organizations. They also have huge upfront and ongoing resource, tech, and expertise costs. Testsigma’s open-source test automation platform is designed to replace the entire broken test stack and enable modern software development teams to test and release products quickly, continuously, and at scale. This is a problem modern engineers have wanted solved for a long time, and hence the large-scale interest in Testsigma. Rukmangada Kandyala, Founder and CEO of Testsigma, said, “Today’s test stack has made test automation more about writing and maintaining scripts than about taking quality software to market as quickly as possible. What we’re trying to do at Testsigma is not just simplify test automation to speed up the testing, but also make it a sustainable, scalable process in which the tools don’t require ongoing maintenance, freeing up the teams to focus on value delivery instead of building and maintaining scripts and frameworks.” Test Automation market is growing at a healthy 20% year-on-year and it will be a $50 billion market by 2025. Currently over 80% of the companies are building their custom test automation stack from scratch, according to a World Quality Report(21-22) over 63% of these are looking for smart testing solutions to speed up the releases. Thousands of developers, QAs, product managers across the world at teams like Sage, HPE, Netgear, HDFC Life, IEEE, SignEasy, American Psychological Association, Mehiläinen, and more are already using Testsigma throughout their software delivery cycles. Testsigma was founded by Rukmangada Kandyala, Pratheep Velicherla, Vikram Chaitanya, and Rajesh Reddy in 2019. The team comes with rich experience in developing enterprise SaaS applications for Zoho, Freshworks, Oracle, HPE. Testsigma will use the capital to strengthen the core engineering and product team and to build alongside and for a global community of testers, test automation engineers, and developers. “Test Automation is a problem faced by every organization, more so these days when release cycles are getting shorter. We are very excited to partner with Testsigma. It is an incredibly comprehensive, easy-to-use test automation platform that caters to every testing requirement of an organization.”, said Abhinav Chaturvedi, Partner at Accel. “These are dev-founders who are building for other devs. Test automation has a problem of fragmentation and we need a collaborative approach to solve this if we are to ship good software. The team’s open-source approach to build a platform for quality seems to be the perfect recipe” added Nikhil Kapur, Partner at STRIVE. About Testsigma Testsigma is an open-source, low-code, extendable test automation platform that works out of the box to enable everyone in the team to rapidly develop, execute, and analyze end-to-end tests for web and mobile apps, and APIs in plain English. About Accel Accel is a global venture capital firm that aims to be the first partner to exceptional teams everywhere, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Accel has been operating in India since 2008, and its investments include companies like BookMyShow, Browserstack, Flipkart, Freshworks, FalconX, Infra.Market, Chargebee, Clevertap, Cure Fit, Musigma, Moneyview, Mensa Brands, Myntra, Moglix, Ninjacart, Swiggy, Stanza Living, Urban Company, Zetwerk, and Zenoti, among many others. We help ambitious entrepreneurs build iconic global businesses. For more, visit www.accel.com or https://twitter.com/Accel_India. About STRIVE STRIVE is a B2B/SaaS-focused fund with over 80 investments across India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, and managing over $200M in AUM. The firm has invested in several dev infra and SaaS companies in India including Hasura, 100ms, and Classplus. Contact Details Testsigma Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://testsigma.com/

February 28, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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International Association of Political Consultants Condemns Russia Invasion of Democratic Ukraine

International Association of Political Consultants

Matthew Klink, President of the International Association of Political Consultants (IAPC) released the following statement in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We join the global community in condemning Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. The fledgling Ukrainian democracy is the victim of an unprovoked action by Russia. They should cease this destructive action and immediately restore the democratically elected government and illegally seized territory.” “For over 54 years IAPC members have promoted democracy around the world. We are distressed to see an authoritarian government, in this case Russia, attempt to depose the democratically elected government of Ukraine.” “Democratic governments around the world need to come to the aid of a fellow democracy. We are witnessing increasing attacks on democracy around the world, and Russia’s actions only act as encouragement for other dictators and despots. The free and democratic nations of the world need to stand up to such a brazen assault on democracy.” “The IAPC stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and offer their support for the restoration of the democratically elected government of President Volodymyr Zelensky.” Established in 1968, The International Association of Political Consultants is committed to fostering democracy and the democratic process throughout the world. Members span a variety of political backgrounds and activities fostering the growing and diverse profession of political consulting as well as the practical aspects of democratic elections. Please note: Members of the IAPC are available for commentary on the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine. Contact Details President - IAPC Matt Klink +1 310-283-6267 matt@klinkcampaigns.com Vice President - Communications IAPC Marcel Wieder +1 416-907-2126 marcel@aurorastrategy.com Company Website https://www.iapc.org

February 25, 2022 04:02 PM Eastern Standard Time

The Channel Company Acquires Global Marketing and Data Services Agency bChannels

The Channel Company

The Channel Company, the premier provider of news, insights, strategy, events, and marketing services for the technology channel in the United States, today acquired bChannels, a leading global marketing and data services agency specializing in the technology channel. With this strategic acquisition, The Channel Company will scale its full portfolio of services worldwide. It also adds powerful new data-driven capabilities to expand its clients’ partner networks and drive revenue. “The acquisition of bChannels is a bold step in our commitment to give our customers every advantage in the marketplace. This creates an unmatched portfolio of solutions that will transform how we enable our clients to win — anywhere in the world,” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. bChannels provides scalable to- and through-partner marketing services, powerful partner data analytics, and market intelligence. The bChannels portfolio has tremendous synergy with The Channel Company’s end-to-end ecosystem of business outcome-driven strategy, insights, events, and marketing services. A Powerful Combination of Unique Strengths The Channel Company offers a wide range of products and services focused on the technology channel, including its CRN media entity, top industry events, online communities, consulting, research, education, and a full-service marketing agency. Adding bChannels to The Channel Company’s portfolio means that customers already familiar with The Channel Company’s offerings will now have access to exciting new capabilities. bChannels helps global technology vendors accelerate revenue growth to and through channel partners with its portfolio of services, including in-region marketing, data analysis, and competitive intelligence. Powering the bChannels product offering is its Intelligent Index TM database, the world’s largest partner capability database of more than 660,000 partners. Customers of bChannels will benefit from the extensive portfolio of additional marketing, creative, events, and consulting services that The Channel Company offers. Shared Goals and Values The Channel Company and bChannels share a common vision to provide clients with the best possible outcomes, employees with career development opportunities, and the company with a bold commitment to strategic growth. “Our organizations share a similar culture of client excellence, innovation, and deep technology channel expertise. We also share the vision to offer the most powerful suite of services for the technology industry in any market across the globe,” said Phil Gowing, Group CEO and Founder of bChannels. “This acquisition positions us to capitalize on the significant growth opportunity around data analytics, market intelligence, and the need for highly strategic global marketing within the technology channel. We welcome bChannels to The Channel Company family and look forward to working together to transform our customers’ and our employees’ growth,” said Raddon. bChannels’ M&A advisor was Grant Thornton UK and legal advisor was Capital Law Limited. The Channel Company received legal advice from Jones Day and due diligence advice from Alvarez & Marsal. About The Channel Company Headquartered in Westborough, MA, The Channel Company has been servicing the technology channel community for over 35 years. From CRN, the #1 source of technology news, insights and analysis for the IT Channel, to industry-leading events that connect clients to customers, to powerful research and engaging education to accelerate growth, to transformative marketing services to maximize investment, The Channel Company provides a full suite of business outcome-driven services focused on addressing the channelâs unique needs. The Channel Company is a portfolio company of investment funds managed by EagleTree Capital, a New York City-based private equity firm. www.thechannelcompany.com About bChannels With offices in the U.K., U.S., Spain, Malaysia, and Australia, bChannels is a leading global marketing and data services agency specializing in the channel. bChannels has helped global technology vendors accelerate revenue growth to and through channel partners for over 22 years through their portfolio of digital marketing, partner enablement and data intelligence services. bChannels provides a genuine presence in all regions and has a deep understanding of the cultural, economic, and market dynamics within them. This ensures delivery of program and project outcomes that maximize the sales potential in every partner network. www.bchannels.com Contact Details The Channel Company Corporate Communications +1 508-531-9172 corporatecommunications@thechannelcompany.com Company Website https://www.thechannelcompany.com

February 25, 2022 08:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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The Channel Company Acquires Global Marketing and Data Services Agency bChannels

The Channel Company

WESTBOROUGH, MA – The Channel Company, the premier provider of news, insights, strategy, events, and marketing services for the technology channel in the United States, today acquired bChannels, a leading global marketing and data services agency specializing in the technology channel. With this strategic acquisition, The Channel Company will scale its full portfolio of services worldwide. It also adds powerful new data-driven capabilities to expand its clients’ partner networks and drive revenue. “The acquisition of bChannels is a bold step in our commitment to give our customers every advantage in the marketplace. This creates an unmatched portfolio of solutions that will transform how we enable our clients to win — anywhere in the world,” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. bChannels provides scalable to- and through-partner marketing services, powerful partner data analytics, and market intelligence. The bChannels portfolio has tremendous synergy with The Channel Company’s end-to-end ecosystem of business outcome-driven strategy, insights, events, and marketing services. A Powerful Combination of Unique Strengths The Channel Company offers a wide range of products and services focused on the technology channel, including its CRN media entity, top industry events, online communities, consulting, research, education, and a full-service marketing agency. Adding bChannels to The Channel Company’s portfolio means that customers already familiar with The Channel Company’s offerings will now have access to exciting new capabilities. bChannels helps global technology vendors accelerate revenue growth to and through channel partners with its portfolio of services, including in-region marketing, data analysis, and competitive intelligence. Powering the bChannels product offering is its Intelligent Index TM database, the world’s largest partner capability database of more than 660,000 partners. Customers of bChannels will benefit from the extensive portfolio of additional marketing, creative, events, and consulting services that The Channel Company offers. Shared Goals and Values The Channel Company and bChannels share a common vision to provide clients with the best possible outcomes, employees with career development opportunities, and the company with a bold commitment to strategic growth. “Our organizations share a similar culture of client excellence, innovation, and deep technology channel expertise. We also share the vision to offer the most powerful suite of services for the technology industry in any market across the globe,” said Phil Gowing, Group CEO and Founder of bChannels. “This acquisition positions us to capitalize on the significant growth opportunity around data analytics, market intelligence, and the need for highly strategic global marketing within the technology channel. We welcome bChannels to The Channel Company family and look forward to working together to transform our customers’ and our employees’ growth,” said Raddon. bChannels’ M&A advisor was Grant Thornton UK and legal advisor was Capital Law Limited. The Channel Company received legal advice from Jones Day and due diligence advice from Alvarez & Marsal. About The Channel Company Headquartered in Westborough, MA, The Channel Company has been servicing the technology channel community for over 35 years. From CRN, the #1 source of technology news, insights and analysis for the IT Channel, to industry-leading events that connect clients to customers, to powerful research and engaging education to accelerate growth, to transformative marketing services to maximize investment, The Channel Company provides a full suite of business outcome-driven services focused on addressing the channelâs unique needs. The Channel Company is a portfolio company of investment funds managed by EagleTree Capital, a New York City-based private equity firm. www.thechannelcompany.com About bChannels With offices in the U.K., U.S., Spain, Malaysia, and Australia, bChannels is a leading global marketing and data services agency specializing in the channel. bChannels has helped global technology vendors accelerate revenue growth to and through channel partners for over 22 years through their portfolio of digital marketing, partner enablement and data intelligence services. bChannels provides a genuine presence in all regions and has a deep understanding of the cultural, economic, and market dynamics within them. This ensures delivery of program and project outcomes that maximize the sales potential in every partner network. www.bchannels.com Contact Details The Channel Company Corporate Communications +1 508-531-9172 corporatecommunications@thechannelcompany.com Company Website https://www.thechannelcompany.com

February 25, 2022 08:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Kontron announces ME1310 distributed unit for service providers deploying in harsh environments needing built in switch and timing for Open vRAN

6WIND

6WIND, a leading High Performance, and Secure Virtualized Networking Software company is delighted to announce Kontron, a leading global provider of IoT, embedded computer technology, has increased its telecommunications portfolio to include the new ME1310 designed to solve restricted space and power challenges by enabling complex applications closer to the network edge while continuing to simplify Open RAN deployment. Featuring the latest Intel® Xeon® D-2700 processor, the powerful yet versatile ME1310 platform combines a long life, wide temp, small form factor mechanical footprint in a solution which complies with leading industry vRAN software offerings. Kontron’s far edge server is unique in the market in that it integrates what is generally multiple hardware entities into a very robust, wide temp (-40°C to +65°C) platform. By bringing separate hardware entities into a single unit which operates in a wide temp environment, OPEX and TCO is reduced through less requirements for AC/heat, cabling, reduction of multiple failure points, complexity of deployment and space required for deployment. The ME1310 is also applicable to a wide range of applications outside of the oRAN/vRAN space – transportation, industrial automation, military defense and more. “Extending our relationship with Kontron offers our customers a best of breed 5G Open RAN solution. The 6WIND vCSR provides line rate performance with zero packet loss delivering 20G while using only one CPU core. This leaves the rest of the CPU cores for running the DU application software. 6WIND vCSR makes an efficient use of Kontron’s platform capabilities to deliver an optimized routing and security solution which translates into a better OPEX and CAPEX saving”, commented Julien Dahan, CEO, 6WIND. “We are proud to bring our ME1310 to market, and the solution collaboration between the two companies continues to be powerful. Our further partnership with 6WIND gives our combined customers a unique edge differentiation, a full featured L3 Router. Adding the 6WIND vCSR with IPSec capabilities eliminates the need for an external hardware router in deployments requiring this functionality”, stated Robert Courteau, EVP, Kontron Americas. About 6WIND 6WIND is a virtualized networking software company and the worldwide market leader for Virtual Service Router solutions. 6WIND software is deployed globally by Service Providers, Cloud Providers, Enterprises, Systems Integrators, and Tier-1 OEMs, allowing customers to replace expensive hardware with software and virtualization for routing and security use cases. 6WIND has a global presence with Headquarters based in Paris, France, and in Santa Clara, California. Contact Details 6WIND Neelam Bahal, VP Global Marketing +44 7805 090701 neelam.bahal@6wind.com Company Website https://www.6wind.com

February 24, 2022 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

ReleaseHub Appoints Kelsey DeGeorge as Chief Revenue Officer

ReleaseHub

ReleaseHub today announced that Kelsey DeGeorge has been appointed as Chief Revenue Officer. DeGeorge joins ReleaseHub from Amazon Web Services, where she led a sales segment dedicated to B2B ISV companies, supporting them as consumers of AWS technology while forming joint GTM partnerships. DeGeorge will be responsible for scaling the GTM organization by accelerating ReleaseHub adoption, elevating ReleaseHub’s visibility through the channel, including cloud partner programs, and connecting with hundreds of thousands of developers on AWS who use conventional environments today. She will report directly to ReleaseHub CEO and co-founder Tommy McClung. “Hiring Kelsey is a major milestone for ReleaseHub,” said Tommy McClung, ReleaseHub co-founder and CEO. “We immediately recognized her unmatched knowledge of the software vendor market and her deep insights into how companies can build GTM partnerships with cloud providers, an influential channel strategy in the industry. She is intimately familiar with the challenges ISVs face, and her skillset is the perfect match as we ramp up for the next phase of growth.” ReleaseHub provides Environments-as-a-Service to software developers, easing a significant bottleneck in software production. Developers frequently wait for access to limited environments; having access to Environments-as-a-Service empowers developers to create cloud native full-stack environments on-demand, which can be used for quality analysis, running production applications and delivering software to customers on virtual private clouds or public clouds like AWS. “I was introduced to ReleaseHub during my time at AWS and recognized the opportunity that their novel Environments-as-a-Service platform provides,” said DeGeorge. “They’ve created a unique technology with significant growth potential. It’s a rare opportunity to join such an innovative company at the startup stage, and I’m thrilled to be part of the team.” Prior to joining ReleaseHub and AWS, DeGeorge held GTM and engineering roles at PTC, Schlumberger, and RealID. She has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from University of Colorado, and is involved in the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR). About ReleaseHub: ReleaseHub delivers Environments as a Service. It lets developers easily share progress with stakeholders when a full stack environment is created with every pull request and is shareable via custom URLs and directly in Slack. Every environment is a full instance of the app with all its services. ReleaseHub was funded by Sequoia, Y Combinator, Bow Capital, Artisanal Ventures, Hack VC, and other investors. More information is available at www.releasehub.com. Contact Details Forrest Carman +1 206-859-3118 forrest.carman@gmail.com Company Website https://releasehub.com/

February 24, 2022 09:00 AM Pacific Standard Time

6WIND Supports Intel® Xeon® D processor for its Virtual Cell Site Router (vCSR)

6WIND

6WIND, a leading high Performance and Secure networking software company announces the 6WIND Virtual Cell Site Router (vCSR) solutions now supports Intel’s new Intel® Xeon® D processor. As Mobile Network Operators seek cost-effective solutions to deploy 5G services, increasingly many are looking to Virtual RAN solutions leveraging best of breed vendors. By using COTS server with 6WIND Virtual Cell Site Router (vCSR), MNO’s can consolidate the functions of DU, and Router on a single COTS Server, therefore, reducing CAPEX footprint, cabling and OPEX for each Cell Site deployment. Intel’s new Xeon® D processor dense compute and connectivity resources [with up to 100Gb Ethernet throughput] and integrated accelerators [Intel® QuickAssist Technology (QAT) and Inline IPSec] enables the functionalities at the edge that your business demands. The new Intel Xeon® D capabilities combined with 6WIND vCSR make the ideal Cell Site Router for 5G rollouts. The 6WIND vCSR is designed to be deployed virtualized or containerized on an x86 COTS server, providing all required layer 3 connectivity features between the access network and the 5G core network. The 6WIND vCSR simplifies the mobile network architecture and significantly reduces operator TCO. It is optimized to develop high-performance routing and IPsec VPN connectivity with minimal CPU resource usage. In addition, the 6WIND vCSR comes with an open management and enhanced automation capabilities to ease integration with Operator’s NMS and OSS and simplify network operations. The 6WIND virtual Cell Site Router can deliver additional IP/MPLS capabilities to extend the provider network to the far edge. “We are excited to announce our support of Intel’s new Xeon® D processors. The enhanced capabilities of these next-generation processors are fully leveraged at the 6WIND vCSR and more broadly across the entire 6WIND Virtual Service Router product family, delivering improved CAPEX and simplifying 5G edge deployments. Beyond MNOs, this partnership will widely benefit Communication Service Providers, Enterprises and Cloud Providers to cost effectively accelerate their adoption of 5G!” stated Julien DAHAN, CEO, 6WIND. In addition to 6WIND vCSR, all of the 6WIND products support Intel’s new Xeon® D processor, including 6WIND Virtual Service Router (VSR) solutions; vPE, vSecGW, vCG-NAT, vCPE and vBorderRouter, 6WINDCloud and 6WIND Virtual Accelerator. About 6WIND 6WIND is a virtualized networking software company and the worldwide market leader for Virtual Service Router solutions. 6WIND software is deployed globally by Service Providers, Cloud Providers, Enterprises, Systems Integrators, and Tier-1 OEMs, allowing customers to replace expensive hardware with software and virtualization for routing and security use cases. 6WIND has a global presence with Headquarters based in Paris, France, and in Santa Clara, California. Contact Details 6WIND Neelam Bahal, VP Global Marketing +44 7805 090701 neelam.bahal@6wind.com Company Website https://www.6wind.com

February 24, 2022 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time

Fintech NayaPay secures $13m as it rolls out digital payments revolution in Pakistan

Stockwood Strategy

NayaPay, a Pakistan-based fintech platform, has raised $13 million in one of the largest seed rounds in South Asia. Bringing together a diverse mix of leading global institutional and angel investors, the round was led by Zayn Capital, global fund manager MSA Novo and early-stage VC Graph Ventures from Silicon Valley. Singapore-based Saison Capital, Waleed Saigol’s Maple Leaf Capital and Warren Hogarth, CEO Empower Finance, also participated in the round, alongside a major investment from the sponsors of the Lakson Group – a Pakistani conglomerate with interests in media, telecom, industrials, financial services as well as controlling stake in Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan and McDonalds Pakistan. NayaPay is the first fintech of its kind in Pakistan having recently secured the first E-Money Institution license from the central bank, State Bank of Pakistan. It is on a mission to make financial services simpler and accessible to millions of Pakistani users. NayaPay aims to be at the forefront in the digitization of Pakistan with its two-sided platform for the underbanked. Pakistan presents a significant market opportunity for NayaPay, where over 50 million adults are unbanked and only 33% of women have a bank account. With 70% of the population under 35 years old, there is a significant mobile-first generation. Almost $4tn payments are made each year but only 1% of these are made digitally currently. On the merchant side, the majority of SMBs in Pakistan are unregistered, have traditionally dealt primarily in cash, and have very limited access to business banking. The fintech has launched its chat-led super app targeted primarily at students and freelancers; and is building a SaaS based platform called NayaPay Arc offering universal payment acceptance and financial management tools for SMBs. NayaPay’s platform strategy will harness the network effects between consumers and merchants, as seen in platforms such as Square Cash/Square, WeChat Pay, AliPay and Venmo in their native markets.. NayaPay CEO and Founder Danish A. Lakhani commented: “NayaPay is empowering young Pakistani adults starting their financial journey, from students stepping into adulthood to freelancers and entrepreneurs taking an active role in managing their finances. In many senses, it’s a coming-of-age moment for many and our goal is to continue to innovate and build functionality to become a part of their daily lives, for the rest of their lives.” Danish A. Lakhani added “Micro, small and medium businesses make up 90% of the merchant-base in Pakistan and yet they are underserved when it comes to access to basic financial services. NayaPay Arc will provide universal payments acceptance and a range of business financial management tools to empower entrepreneurs and small business owners. The tools are intended to give business owners the visibility of their cash flows, pay suppliers and grow sales. Our goal is to enable them to focus on growth while we take care of the rest. By helping small businesses harness the power of technology, we believe we can transform the Pakistani economy.” Faisal Aftab, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Zayn Capital Frontier, said: “We are very bullish on fintech in Pakistan. While just beginning to emerge, Pakistani fintechs have the advantage of learning from peers and placing better informed strategic bets. We were impressed by the completeness of the vision of the founding team at NayaPay, and their differentiated platform-based strategy-- first focused on servicing the needs of underbanked consumers and SMBs with specific use cases and building out from there. With a proven ability to execute on the ground, the founder has an impressive track record of building and scaling businesses in Pakistan, including the country’s largest fiber broadband service (StormFiber).” Omar Siddiqui, General Partner at Graph Ventures, added, “We are excited to partner with Danish and the NayaPay team as they scale their leading digital payments platform for consumers and merchants in Pakistan. We have been early-stage investors in 300+ companies over the past decade in the United States, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, and we are excited to see the mobile and fintech technology trends that have empowered consumers in these markets also emerge in Pakistan. NayaPay already offers the most robust solution for consumers to access next-generation financial conveniences in Pakistan, and we look forward to working with the team as they roll out new products and grow their consumer base." Danish A. Lakhani concluded: “Customer trust is a key pillar of any platform’s success. At NayaPay, we are consumed by our obsession to simplify the lives of both consumers and merchants with our app and NayaPay Arc while supporting our customers with robust and scalable technology and fanatic customer service. We are also partnering with leading banks to provide additional value and convenience to our mutual customers, eventually leading to a full digital banking experience.” About NayaPay NayaPay, the first E-Money Institution in Pakistan, is a fintech platform empowering underserved consumers and SMBs with better access to financial services. NayaPay has been in a private beta, building a community of early supporters for its consumer proposition -- a chat-led super app accompanied by free Visa Virtual and physical cards. Any Pakistani citizen can open a NayaPay wallet on their smartphone in minutes and use the app to make everyday payments, send and receive money, split bills and much more. For merchants, NayaPay offers access to universal payments acceptance and powerful financial management tools with an easy-to-open business account and Visa card. NayaPay is authorised and regulated by the State Bank of Pakistan as an Electronic Money Institution. For more information please visit: www.nayapay.com About Graph Ventures Graph Ventures is an early-stage investment firm based in Silicon Valley with an operator-centric team and model. Established by leading technology entrepreneurs and executives in 2011, Graph has since backed 300+ start-ups around the world that have cumulatively created $10B+ in value, including BetterUp, Dapper Labs. Loft, PicsArt, Porch, and TrueLayer. Contact Details NayaPay Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://www.nayapay.com/

February 24, 2022 08:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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