The GCC's Tech Vanguard: Nomod's Omar Kassim

Omar Kassim’s entry into payments technology began in 2018 with Lunatap, which the UAE-based entrepreneur describes as “a side project” that allowed anyone to bring their account on the financial infrastructure platform Stripe into “the real world.”

Kassim recalls the project getting a fair bit of momentum, and he and his team kept coming back to it thinking there was something more to be explored there – and that was what led to the founding of the payment links platform, Nomod, an enterprise that is deeply focused on delivering “the best payment links on the planet.”

“Nomod’s premise is that payment links aren’t just a feature, and instead are a beautifully versatile, LEGO-like building block, allowing merchants to transform conversations into customers,” Kassim explains. “By enabling the seamless creation and sharing of payment links, particularly through platforms like WhatsApp, we are bridging the gap between communication and commerce. Our vision is to become the go-to solution for converting everyday merchant-customer conversations into transactions, starting with the UAE, and rapidly expanding across the MENA region.”

Nomod currently serves over 22,000 merchants in the UAE, with it becoming known for its ability to go beyond traditional in-person and e-commerce payments by digitizing payments for everything else – think delivery, events, off-platform bookings, supercar rentals, apartment down payments, brokerage commissions, personal shopping services, and a whole lot more.

Plus, Kassim says, the company is hyper price competitive, leads the industry in payout speed, and iterates fast – all of which is a nod to how it has been backed by the likes of San Francisco-based Y Combinator. Now, with a launch in KSA planned for the first quarter of 2025, it looks like it’s all systems go for Nomod – and the sky’s the limit.

A Playbook For Success: Q&A With Omar Kassim 

What advice would you give to young people/new businesses looking to start/grow in your field/industry?

Here’s a cheat sheet:  

• Work hard, play hard. 
• Learn to sell as early as you can. Bad products win, because they're sold hard; great products win, because they're sold hard, and work better. 
• Find something that you care deeply about, and spend as long as you can solving that problem over and over, until you're the very best at it. 
• Persistence is critical. 
• The region is great, but think global from the outset. 
• Build things that people want. 

Nomod's Omar Kassim was one of the 30 innovators celebrated in Inc. Arabia's December 2024 special feature, The GCC's Tech Vanguard. For the full list of The GCC's Tech Vanguard, please click here.