- A range of investors have moved to provide funding to Remitly, including a group of previous backers.
- The total amount invested is around $85m – but the firm is now valued at well over $1bn overall.
- The health crisis caused by the coronavirus was identified by the firm’s chief executive officer as a reason for the new investment.
A leading online money transfer company has announced a funding round worth almost $90m.
Remitly said that it had raised the $85m against the background of the coronavirus pandemic, which it said was contributing to a surge in demand for the service.
The firm has also been valued at $1.5bn.
There are a host of backers involved in the funding round, including PayU, which is owned by Prosus and which has invested in the company before.
Additional firms that are involved in the funding round include some other names that are familiar to Remitly, such as Generation Investment Management and Stripes.
Also, on the list are Owl Rock Capital, DN Capital and Threshold Ventures.
Top Tier and Princeville Global are also on the list.
The new cash will be used to add new online tools to the firm’s range of financial services.
According to Matt Oppenheimer, who is both a co-founder of the firm and also its chief executive officer, the coronavirus pandemic has had a particular consequence on certain countries.
“As the current health crisis continues to devastate the global economy and disproportionately impact developing countries, immigrants are increasingly turning to digital solutions to address their financial needs and ensure they are still able to send critical funds home to their loved ones,” he said.
He went on to explain that those who are currently excluded from financial services in some way would benefit in particular from the new funding round.
“Remitly was born out of this necessity – to provide the underserved, underbanked and overlooked access to financial services anytime, anywhere,” he said.
He added that the firm would offer solutions that had high levels of security and that are cost-effective and easy to use.
It has been a big week for investment rounds in the cross-border payments industry.
This announcement from Remitly comes hot on the heels of a similar announcement from TransferWise earlier in the week, and the pair of announcements just goes to show that confidence has not faltered in all areas of the economy as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Matt Oppenheimer’s statement, though, is his claim that digitalisation has sped up because of the pandemic.
Given the importance of the internet in the social distancing age, few people doubted that this was the case – but as these announcements show, the venture capital sector and similar clearly don’t disagree at all.
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