International money transfer business Remitly will add $115 million to its coffers through what would be the largest investment in a Seattle company in the last year.
The investment—which requires Hart-Scott-Rodino approval due to its size, as well as sign-off from state regulators because Remitly is a licensed financial services provider—is expected to close by the end of the quarter, according to a company representative. Leading the funding round is Naspers, a South African multinational media and Internet company, through its PayU subsidiary. PayU operates payment services in Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, and is a major fintech investor, having backed the likes of Flipkart and Tencent.
Remitly says its prior investors Stripes Group, DFJ, and DN Capital are also participating in the Series D investment. Incorporated in 2011 as Beamit in Boise, ID, Remitly will have attracted more than $175 million at the close of this investment. Its last funding round came in spring of 2016, when it raised $38.5 million.
PayU CEO Laurent le Moal is joining Remitly’s board. The company looks to be a strategic asset and potential partner to Remitly as it grows its footprint beyond the high-value remittances corridors in which it already operates. These include the send markets of the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., and the receiving markets of the Philippines, India, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru.
“Naspers’ PayU has a strong track record investing in and building payments businesses in high growth markets around the world that will be key as we continue our international expansion,” says Matt Oppenheimer, co-founder and CEO of Remitly, in a news release announcing the funding agreement on Tuesday.
As its geographic footprint illustrates, Remitly’s focus is on money transfers from rich countries to the developing world—a $430 billion annual market. The company says it already facilitates $4 billion in money transfers annually, which is up from the $1 billion in transactions it said it was facilitating in early 2016.
The last big-ticket tech funding round in Seattle went to OfferUp, which hauled in $119 million in September 2016.
Credit: Photo by Christine Roy on Unsplash
