Person-to-person (P2P) mobile payments startup Remitly Inc. has raised $38 million in a mix of new equity and debt financing from IFC and Silicon Valley Bank. Founded in 2011, Remitly offers a mobile payments service that enables consumers to make P2P international money transfers from the United States and Canada to people located in Asia, Central America and South America. The company’s platform aims to make transfers as easy as possible by eliminating forms, codes, agents, extra time, and fees tied to the traditional money transfer process. Remitly is licensed as a money transmitter currently operating in 49 US states and Canada, sending millions of dollars for thousands of customers each month. It’s catering to an ever-increasing demand from migrants working in the United States and Canada who wish to send money home to their families, a market that saw transferred funds topping $600 billion last year. That process has often been slow and expensive and has lacked transparency. Many recipients may have little or no access to traditional banking services, whereas Remitly says it makes sending money faster, easier, more transparent and less costly through its proprietary global transfer network and mobile app. “Remitly’s mission is perfectly aligned with IFC’s long-standing objective of helping the private sector find solutions that benefit the world’s poor,” IFC Fintech investments lead Kai Schmitz said in a statement. “Transfers by migrants to their home countries is a proven way to improve the lives of families and support emerging market economies. The World Bank is actively working with the G20 and other partners to increase choice for senders and lower the cost of remittances.” After having successfully added support for payments to Mexico in 2015, Remity has recently added support for payments to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru, alongside its original payments services to the Philippines and India. Including the new round, Remitly has raised $100 million to date from investors including DFJ, DN Capital, QED Investors, Trilogy Equity Partners, Founders Coop and Techstars. The company said it would use the new funds to expand its ability to deliver international fund transfers. Show your support for our mission with our one-click subscription to our YouTube channel (below). The more subscribers we have, the more YouTube will suggest relevant enterprise and emerging technology content to you. Thanks! Support our mission: >>>>>> SUBSCRIBE NOW >>>>>> to our YouTube channel. … We’d also like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content. If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
Mobile payments start-up Remitly has raised $28m from IFC and Silicon Valley Bank. Remitly provides a mobile payments service that facilitates P2P money transfers from the US and Canada to Asia, Central America and South America, without the usual complexities and fees associated with money transfer processes. Remitly's services cater to a growing demand from migrant workers in North America wanting to send money home to their families; the total of transferred funds last year exceed $600bn. The company is also working on an app for Android phones called PayPal, which will allow users to pay bills using bitcoin.