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Khalid Ashmawy<\/a> remembers the first time he wired money home while studying in Europe.<\/p>\n He had just received his monthly stipend as a master\u2019s student in Stuttgart and wanted to send part of it back to his family in Cairo. It was usually a slow and expensive process, he recalled. A $400 wire transfer, for instance, could cost $40 in fees and take three business days to arrive.<\/p>\n Years later, while working at Microsoft and Uber in the U.S., and even after founding a startup, that experience hadn\u2019t improved much. <\/p>\n The persistent pain point across different stages of his career eventually inspired Ashmawy to launch Munify<\/a>, a cross-border neobank designed to give Egyptians abroad a faster, cheaper way to send money home and, for residents in the country, access to U.S. banking.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the startup joined Y Combinator\u2019s Summer 2025 batch<\/a>, a rare entrant from outside the U.S. and one of the few without a core AI pitch in a class dominated by generative AI startups. The company also raised $3 million in seed funding from the accelerator and other regional investors, including BYLD and DCG.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBanking wasn\u2019t built for people like me. It\u2019s very costly, takes a long time, and is fragmented,\u201d the founder and chief executive told TechCrunch in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s a problem I have personally experienced and one that resonates with a lot of people who want to send money back home quickly and efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n Ashmawy grew up in Egypt, studied computer science, and developed a deep love for software early on. A scholarship took him to Europe, where he completed two master\u2019s degrees in Germany and Switzerland.<\/p>\n From there, he spent seven years as an engineer and team leader at Microsoft and Uber \u2014 experiences that opened his eyes to the world of disruptive technologies and startups.<\/p>\n His next step was inevitable. In 2019, Ashmawy left Uber to launch Founders Fund\u2013backed Huspy<\/a>, a proptech platform focused on mortgages in the Middle East, serving as its chief technology officer until 2022.<\/p>\n Leaving Huspy gave him space to reflect on his own immigrant journey. Once again, the issue of remittances loomed large. Meanwhile, in other emerging markets, platforms like Nigeria\u2019s LemFi<\/a> and India\u2019s Aspora<\/a> were already taking off, helping migrants from those countries send money back home.<\/p>\n