Update: This is the most awkward update I ever had to make. The news is old (period). Transferwise’s latest round of $26M was in May, and I got carried away by an update on their Crunchbase profile. I won’t be removing this bogus piece of news, but I wish it had happened around the April Fools’ day.
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I’m quite surprised none of the publications, except FintekNews, picked up the news about the latest investment in TransferWise. Perhaps, the startup bloggers are on a well-deserved vacation 🙂
UK-based but Estonia-founded money transfer service Transferwise revealed another $26M investment on August 3rd. The round was led by Baillie Gifford with participation from Richard Branson, Valar Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz. Transferwise finds itself in the company of Udacity, Skyscanner, AirBnB, Spotify, Flipkart as these tech ventures were also backed by Baillie Gifford.
Earlier in May, TransferWise, a Seedcamp’11 alumnus, had raised the same amount at $1.1B valuation. Just like that, the first Eastern European Unicorn was born.
Back in 2010, Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Kaarmann were unhappy with exorbitant fees, including hidden charges in the exchange rate, the banks charge for international money transfers. They intervened and co-founded Transferwise that disrupted the whole sector (here in 2012 we explained how the service works). TransferWise’s pricing is transparent, they apply a real mid-market exchange rate and charge £2 per transaction or 0.5% on transfers above £400. As of June 2016, the fintech startup transferred more than $5B saving millions of dollars to its customers.
In late May the company announced TransferWise for Business, claiming they reduce 7 times the cost of international business transfer.
Recently another money transfer startup based in London- TransferGo from Lithuania - raised a $3.4 round shortly after Brexit.
Cover image credit: TransferWise Facebook.
