Ahmad Hammouda: Building Thndr Into a New Gateway for Retail Investing

Ahmad Hammouda’s path to building one of Egypt’s largest digital investment platforms began with a problem he encountered from inside the financial system.

While working in investment banking in Cairo, Hammouda began thinking about how difficult it was for ordinary individuals to access investment products. An idea to build a technology-driven brokerage did not move forward at his employer, and he later shifted into technology, joining Uber Egypt before eventually leaving to pursue the concept himself.

By late 2020, Thndr had launched with co-founder Seif Amr, combining Hammouda’s capital-markets background with experience gained in consumer technology. What began as an effort to simplify access to Egyptian stocks has since expanded into a broader investment platform spanning equities, funds, gold and international markets.

That growth has also changed Hammouda’s role. Building a fintech app was one challenge. Leading a regulated investment platform with roughly $1 billion in assets under custody and ambitions beyond Egypt is a considerably different one.

From Investment Banking to Technology

Hammouda spent years in investment banking and capital markets before moving into technology. His professional background includes serving as an investment banking vice president before joining Uber, where he later became general manager in Egypt.

Those two environments shaped Thndr’s model. Traditional brokerages depend on financial expertise, regulation and market infrastructure. Consumer technology companies tend to focus on simplicity, scale and removing friction from everyday transactions. Thndr brought elements of both together, building a mobile-first platform around investment access.

Hammouda has said his time at Uber taught him how technology could create a more seamless consumer experience, while his earlier banking career exposed him to the barriers many people faced in accessing investment products.

Building a Regulated Brokerage

Thndr’s early development depended on securing regulatory approval.

On Aug. 12, 2020, the company received authorization from Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority to conduct securities brokerage activities. Trading went live later that year.

The company entered a market where retail participation in formal capital markets remained relatively limited. Instead of relying on physical brokerage branches and traditional account-opening processes, Thndr built around digital onboarding and mobile access.

The model did not remove the risks associated with investing, but it reduced some of the administrative barriers facing first-time investors.

Bringing New Investors Into the Market

One of Thndr’s most significant developments has been the composition of its user base.

By May 2026, Thndr had recorded more than 5.5 million app downloads and around 700,000 funded accounts, up from roughly 500,000 a year earlier. The company has said that about 80% of its customers are first-time investors.

About half of those customers were also outside Cairo and Alexandria, suggesting that the platform’s reach was extending beyond Egypt’s two largest urban centers.

Thndr’s growth has taken place alongside a wider rise in retail investing. During the first quarter of 2026, 164,000 new investor registrations were recorded on the Egyptian Exchange, representing a 200% increase from the same period a year earlier.

Growing Through Economic Volatility

Egypt’s economic environment has been an important backdrop to Thndr’s expansion.

High inflation and currency depreciation pushed many households to reconsider how they held savings, while interest in equities, gold and other assets increased. Hammouda has described the 2023 economic crisis as a turning point in how people approached the allocation of their money.

That environment created opportunities for investment platforms, but it also raised questions about investor protection.

Many of Thndr’s customers are entering capital markets for the first time. Access alone does not guarantee sound investment decisions, particularly during periods of economic volatility. The company has responded in part by developing educational products and financial content aimed at users with limited prior experience in investing.

Moving Beyond Stock Trading

Thndr has gradually expanded beyond its original brokerage model.

The platform now includes Egyptian equities, mutual funds, gold and access to overseas markets. It has also introduced ThndrX for more active traders and Thndr Alpha, a guided-investing product.

Asset management has become another part of that transition. Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority approved the incorporation of Thndr Fund Company in December 2025, while a Thndr equities investment fund received a license in January 2026.

The company later said its fund marketplace had expanded from 12 to 30 products, with mutual-fund assets on the platform reaching approximately $161 million (EGP 8 billion).

That expansion takes Thndr further into wealth management and increases the importance of governance, product oversight and regulatory compliance.

Funding Regional Expansion

Outside capital has supported the company’s growth.

Thndr raised $20 million in a Series A round in 2022, co-led by Tiger Global, BECO Capital and Prosus Ventures. Another $15.7 million round followed in May 2025, bringing total capital raised to approximately $37.76 million.

Regional expansion has become a major focus. Thndr Financial Ltd is licensed by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market and became the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange’s first remote retail trading member in 2025.

Saudi Arabia is another target. Hammouda said in 2026 that Thndr had applied for a Saudi license, while he has outlined a longer-term ambition of operating in seven markets by 2030, with Iraq, Morocco and Bahrain among those under consideration.

Expanding that model across the region will not necessarily be straightforward. Each market brings different regulators, competitors, investor habits and financial infrastructure.

From Startup to Major Brokerage

Thndr’s scale in Egypt increasingly places it beyond the early-stage startup category.

During the first four months of 2026, the company accounted for 12.9% of traded value among roughly 120 Egyptian brokerages, making it the country’s largest brokerage over that period, according to Egyptian Exchange figures cited by the Financial Times.

Hammouda said Thndr had reached roughly $1 billion in assets under custody in 2026, reflecting the growing amount of client assets held across the platform.

Scaling Beyond Egypt

Nearly six years after launch, Hammouda no longer needs to prove that Egyptians will use a digital investment platform.

Thndr has moved from a newly licensed brokerage to the top of Egypt’s brokerage rankings, raised nearly $38 million in outside capital, accumulated roughly $1 billion in assets on its platform and established a regulated presence in the UAE.

The next stage presents a different set of challenges.

Regional expansion introduces new competitors and regulatory systems. Asset management adds responsibilities beyond trade execution. A customer base heavily weighted toward first-time investors also places greater emphasis on education and product design.

Hammouda’s next opportunity is to take Thndr’s model beyond Egypt while building on the accessibility that helped drive its early growth.