There's a detail in Amer Baroudi's story that most startup founder profiles would leave out. After fleeing Syria, unable to open a bank account anywhere he moved, he spent two years working in the black market. When it was time to move again, he traveled with his life savings in cash — strapped to his body. He had no other option.
That image — a young man crossing borders with his money literally taped to his skin because no bank would take him — is the most honest summary of the problem nsave is trying to solve. Not a whitepaper problem, not a market-sizing exercise. A real one that played out on Baroudi's own body.
When It Happens Twice
Baroudi's experience of financial collapse was not a single event. When war broke out in Syria, his family lost everything — their home, their safety, the savings they had spent a lifetime building. They rebuilt. Then Lebanon's economy imploded. It happened again. Twice in one lifetime, he watched financial security disappear overnight, not through bad decisions, but through the simple misfortune of geography.
When he eventually moved abroad and tried to do something as basic as open a bank account, the answer was still no. Not because he was a criminal. Not because he had a poor credit history. But because of where his passport said he was from. Banks conduct risk assessments of every customer, and a person's country of origin can rank so high in those assessments that it renders them "outside of the banks" entirely, Euronews as Baroudi has described it.
He was not alone. More than 700 million people in struggling economies are unable to access safe financial services or protect the value of their money due to inflation, unstable local banks, and financial exclusion — individuals who lack access to the kind of international accounts that are typically reserved for the wealthy. StreetInsider
A Company Built on Contradictions
Baroudi co-founded nsave in 2022 with Abdallah AbuHashem. The two met at Oxford, where both studied as Rhodes Scholars — Baroudi focused on governance, policy and financial regulation, while AbuHashem brought a computer science background from Stanford and experience at Microsoft and Robinhood. On paper, they had the credentials to walk into any boardroom in the world. In practice, they still couldn't get a bank account.
The early days of building nsave were full of moments almost too absurd to be intentional. After raising millions from some of the world's most prestigious investors — including Sequoia Capital — Baroudi couldn't open a company account to receive the funds. Sequoia asked where to send the money. He had to figure that out. Later, working late into the night to create the very first nsave user account — a significant milestone — the two co-founders were blocked by their first banking partner due to their nationalities. The founders of a financial inclusion platform couldn't onboard themselves into their own product. They looked at each other and laughed.
What nsave Actually Does
nsave offers offshore accounts in US dollars, euros, and British pounds to people from countries facing high inflation, currency instability, or dysfunctional banking systems. The problem it addresses is concrete. Lebanon, for instance, has experienced a 137.8% inflation rate, over 90% currency devaluation, and monthly bank withdrawal limits as low as $400 — pushing an estimated 80% of the population below the poverty line, with 36% in extreme poverty. StreetInsider For Lebanese families watching their savings erode in real time, a stable foreign currency account isn't a luxury — it's a lifeline.
The company is headquartered in both London and Geneva, and operates through partnerships with regulated financial institutions in the UK and Switzerland. The Swiss structure is deliberate: Switzerland's fintech license regime allows companies to act as financial intermediaries while working toward full banking authorization, giving nsave a compliant path to market without waiting years for a full license. nsave SA operates under SO-FIT, the Swiss self-regulatory body for financial intermediaries.
The product has expanded considerably since launch, now including a virtual Mastercard for global spending, local cash payout services to countries including Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria, and an investment platform offering access to US stocks, ETFs, bonds, money market funds, and even gold and silver. Nsave
Compliance as the Core Thesis
What separates nsave from most fintech plays in the financial inclusion space is its insistence that compliance and access are not opposing forces — and its willingness to do the harder work of proving it. The standard industry approach to customers from high-risk geographies is a blunt instrument: reject everyone from certain countries and eliminate the risk. nsave's argument is that this is lazy, not prudent.
The onboarding process uses dynamic risk assessment rather than blanket country-based exclusion. Instead of a single gate that screens people out based on nationality, the system evaluates individual profiles and triggers different levels of due diligence based on actual risk signals. Someone might be asked for additional documentation. Another user sails through standard checks. The process is automated and responsive, calibrated to real indicators rather than passport covers.
Baroudi has been vocal about the other side of this argument — his frustration with fintechs that weaponize "financial inclusion" as cover for loose compliance and fraud tolerance. That, in his view, isn't progress. It erodes the trust that makes the entire mission possible. Since day one, nsave has held that strong compliance innovation is core to connecting underserved communities to the global economy. Maddyness
Funding and Momentum
nsave raised a $4 million seed round in March 2024, co-led by Sequoia Capital and TQ Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, ACE Ventures, SV Angel, and FONGIT. The backing from Sequoia and Y Combinator — institutions not known for niche regional bets — signaled that investors saw this as a genuinely scalable global opportunity.
In January 2025, nsave raised an $18 million Series A led by TQ Ventures, with additional participation from Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, ACE Ventures, and Proton Foundation, FinTech Futures bringing total funding to $22.5 million across three rounds. The raise coincided with the launch of nsave's investment product — a significant expansion of the platform's scope from pure savings protection into wealth building.
Looking ahead, nsave plans to roll out local cash payout services and personalized wealth management solutions including smart investing options. FinTech Futures
Opening to Syria
Perhaps the most symbolically significant moment in nsave's short history came in May 2025, when the company opened its platform to Syrian users. The announcement followed US President Donald Trump's visit to Riyadh, during which the lifting of sanctions on Syria was declared — paving the way for broader financial access. FWDStart Baroudi called it "the moment I started nsave for." The company opened a waitlist for Syrian users, with the first 10,000 applicants receiving early access.
It was a full-circle moment of rare clarity: the man who had his savings strapped to his body crossing Syrian borders now running the platform that might mean the next generation of Syrians never has to make that choice.
Une vue d'ensemble
The market nsave is targeting is enormous and genuinely underserved. Offshore banking has historically been a privilege reserved for those with wealth, connections, or the right passport. nsave is attempting to change the structure of that access — making the tools available to the Egyptian engineer, the Pakistani freelancer, the Lebanese family watching their lira evaporate — while maintaining the kind of compliance standards that make it sustainable and trustworthy.
What makes the company worth watching isn't just the product roadmap or the impressive cap table. It's the credibility of the people building it. Baroudi and AbuHashem aren't approaching financial inclusion as a thesis. They lived it, repeatedly, in ways that left marks. The absurdity of being blocked from their own platform on launch night is funny in retrospect. But it's also a precise illustration of a broken system — and the most compelling possible argument for why nsave exists.
As Baroudi puts it: your passport shouldn't determine your path to prosperity.