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Sovra, a fintech platform offering a global dollar account, has raised more than $2 million in a pre-seed round led by Pharsalus Capital, with participation from regional and global angel investors including Karim Atiyeh, founder of Ramp, Hisham Al-Falih, founder of Lean Technologies, Hany Rashwan, founder of 21Shares, and Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Orascom Development Holding.
Founded in 2025 by Ahmad Wehbi, Sovra lets users hold digital dollars, earn yield, send money globally within seconds, and spend through cards supported on the Visa and Mastercard networks, all from a self-custodial account that only the user can access.
Dollar balances are denominated in USDC, the dollar-backed stablecoin issued by NYSE-listed Circle, and the platform connects to third-party DeFi protocols for yield while positioning itself as infrastructure rather than a custodian, meaning user funds persist even if the platform does not.
Wehbi, whose team brings backgrounds across McKinsey, Revolut, JumpCloud and decentralised finance, has tied the company's premise to Lebanon's 2019 banking collapse, when deposits were frozen and the currency lost more than 98% of its value.
Sovra is targeting three initial segments: young professionals across MENA, university students, and the regional diaspora globally, against a backdrop the company describes as two-thirds of MENA adults remaining unbanked or underbanked, alongside remittance charges that can exceed 6% per transfer.
Anthony Ghosn, Managing Director at Pharsalus Capital, said, "By giving people sovereign, self-custodial alternatives to fragile fiat and banking systems, Sovra is helping restore financial dignity in Lebanon and beyond. For those of us with ties to the region, these issues are deeply familiar – and Ahmad and the Sovra team stand out for having the courage and clarity to build where others have been constrained by the scale of the problem."
The company operates a distributed team across the Middle East and Europe, and will use the funding to expand its engineering and product teams ahead of a public launch.
Sovra enters a category drawing growing attention as stablecoin infrastructure lets fintechs offer dollar accounts and cross-border transfers without building banking relationships market by market, a model that has produced a wave of dollar neobanks across emerging markets facing currency instability.
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