International payments platform Paysend has closed a Series B funding round of £88m.
The London firm is one of the world’s fastest growing FinTechs, reaching over 3.7m consumers, 17,000 SMEs and 110 receiving countries since its founding in April 2017.
The investment round was led by One Peak, with participation from Infravia Growth Capital, Hermes GPE Innovation Fund, and existing long-term investors including Silicon Valley–based Plug and Play.
The funding will help Paysend expand its international footprint and speed up product innovation, enabling it to further accelerate its impressive growth trajectory.
Paysend says is targeting the $133 trillion opportunity in cross-border payment flows through its card-to-card payments solution which removes the need for third-party acquirers or processors which increase cost and complexity.
Fees from cash-to-cash transactions – which make up 70% of international payments currently – average up to 5.2% per transaction and an hour spent by both the sender and recipient to complete each transfer.
Paysend says its service slashes fees by as much as 60%, with instant transfers – unlocking up to $5.4bn in annual savings for consumers and SMEs by 2025 and millions of hours.
“This investment will allow us to take our platform to the next stage, innovating and expanding geographically,” said Ronnie Millar, CEO at Paysend.
“There remain significant barriers to entry for consumers and SMEs to pay and send money globally; our platform aims to democratise the service by providing a one-stop-shop to pay and send money to families, suppliers, employees and partners in any currency anywhere in the world at a significantly reduced cost.
“We are delighted that we have a great new set of investors, led by One Peak, who share our strategic vison for the payments market and backs the team of people who have created Paysend from a start-up four years ago.”
Humbert de Liedekerke, Managing Partner at One Peak, commented: “We are excited by Paysend’s enormous growth potential in a massive market, benefiting from a rapid acceleration in the adoption of digital payments.
“In particular, we are seeing strong opportunities as Paysend moves beyond consumers to serve business customers and expands its international footprint to address a growing need for fast, easy and low-cost cross border digital payments.
“Paysend has built an exceptional payments platform by maintaining an unwavering focus on its customers and constantly innovating. We are excited to back the entire Paysend team in their next phase of explosive growth.”