Cryptocurrency payments infrastructure company Ramp has raised £40 million Series A funding.
Just six months after closing its seed round, Ramp has secured backing from new investor Balderton Capital.
Existing investors NFX, Galaxy Digital, Seedcamp, Firstminute Capital also participated, alongside angel investors including Taavet Hinrikus (Wise) and Francesco Simonesci (TrueLayer).
The investment will see Balderton’s general partner, Rana Yared, join the Ramp board.
Founded in 2017 by Szymon Sypniewicz (CEO) and Przemek Kowalczyk (CTO, CPO), Ramp prides itself on taking a responsible and ultimately long-term approach to bringing the benefits of crypto to the masses.
It aims to open up digital assets to more businesses and users – and does so in a way that prioritises sustainable growth, trust and security.
Previously, cryptocurrencies have largely been the reserve of enthusiasts and have centred around crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and eToro which let customers exchange fiat money such as pounds sterling, euro or US dollars to cryptocurrencies and other crypto assets.
However, they are built for users who want to speculate on the prices of crypto assets and buy, hold and sell coins.
“There is so much potential in unlocking cryptocurrency and digital assets beyond today’s narrow and restrictive use cases,” said Szymon Sypniewicz, Ramp co-founder and CEO.
“We’re on a mission to provide instant access to cryptocurrencies through a provider they can trust. Our new partnership with Balderton and Rana, coupled with the continued support from our existing investors, is testament to the fact that what we’re doing is game-changing, and we will continue to do so for the benefit of all.”
Ramp instead allows any brand or partner who wants to offer crypto-enabled services as part of their business model to do so easily and securely through the Ramp SDK (software development kit).
It claims that it takes mere hours to get up and running with Ramp, instead of months if a company were to set up their on-ramping stack, with the platform on hand to help with the infrastructure and licensing to facilitate transactions for end users.
At the same time, this allows such users to move between all Ramp-powered services without having to jump through multiple verification hoops.
The company is now a partner to more than 400 developers, including Mozilla, Browser, Dapper Labs (the company behind NBA Top Shot), and top crypto and DeFi (decentralised finance) apps like Aave, Argent, Trust Wallet, and Zerion.
It is also the exclusive on-ramping partner for Sorare, the blockchain-based, global sports video game and Flow, the blockchain which specialises in NFT marketplaces and digital assets.
Use cases for Ramp today range from enabling users of Opera browser to top-up crypto wallets from within the app, to players being able to play the Sorare NFT game and buy and sell virtual players via Ethereum. With Ramp, NFT-based game Axie Infinity was able to significantly shorten its onboarding process, reducing the time from two hours to just minutes for new customers without compromising on security.
In the future, Ramp could help facilitate crypto transactions for banks’ or other financial institutions’ end-users within their banking apps; it could also unlock completely new use cases that until recently were impossible to launch because Ramp’s seamless UX takes all friction out of the equation.
Following FCA approval in July, Ramp recently received regulatory approval from US FinCen – the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which enables the company to operate legally in the US.
The firm has seen 30x growth in monthly transaction volume in 12 months while tripling its team.
“We firmly believe that digital assets will create tectonic shifts, where this emerging technology will have a powerful impact across gaming, financial services, and how we own real assets,” said Yared.
“The team at Ramp are providing a reliable way in for new audiences by making buying digital assets as straightforward as buying US dollars when making a purchase from your favourite American brand in euros.
“They understand the need to reliably and sustainably create not just the building blocks for this new wave, but the entire infrastructure that will support it for decades to come. I’m excited to be joining the board and look forward to helping the team build this exciting future.”