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The value of remittances around the world continues to grow and today, a start-up that has created a business targeting money transfers to emerging markets has raised many funds for growth in order to capitalize on these funds. WorldRemit, the London start-up that has focused on providing fast and cost-effective money transfers to migrant workers and immigrants in developed countries, generally in developing countries, raised $ 175 million in of a TCV Series D round robin, Accel and Exceed.
To date, the company has focused on providing remittance services to individuals, particularly to help people living and working abroad to send money to friends and family through through an application. This activity now covers 50 shipping countries, 150 receiving countries and some 4 million users. The United States (where it is allowed to operate in all states) is today the market of its "sending" activity. The growth message is however mixed: the company had 2 million users in 2017, so it doubled, but it also expected to reach 10 million users by 2018.
WorldRemit indicates that the plan will be to continue to develop the company's activities around individual transfers, but also to develop it also to increase the number of payments between small and medium-sized enterprises. Indeed, the company still has a "mandate" in its brand, but describes itself as a "mobile payment company" in the Series D announcement.
The three investors in this cycle were all previous investors of WorldRemit, which has so far raised about $ 386 million.
The company does not disclose its badessment, but the lack of its own forecast of user growth may have had an impact. Sources close to the company told us that its C series was valued at just under $ 670 million by the end of 2017. However, in November 2018, PitchBook noted that, as a continuation of the C series, its subsequent valuation was about $ 538 million. On a straight line, Series D would have a post-monetary valuation of $ 713 million.
During the past year, the company has also experienced a change of leadership. Ismail Ahmed, co-founder of the company with Catherine Wines, stepped down as CEO in September 2018 to be replaced by Breon Corcoran, who was previously CEO of Paddy Power Betfair, an online betting company. At the time, the company had stated that it was preparing for an IPO, although this large-scale lifting will likely delay any listing for at least some time. (Ahmed remains executive chairman.)
"For more than eight years, our main goal has been to help migrants send money to their families, friends and communities," Corcoran said in a statement. "Our customers play a key role in the economies in which they work and their remittances are important to their home countries. Our mission is to help them transfer money securely and quickly while reducing costs for our customers. We will develop our business through differentiation in terms of speed, service, security and value. "
The World Bank estimates that annual remittances to low- and middle-income countries reach $ 529 billion in 2018, an increase of 9.6% and a record $ 483 billion in 2017. If you add the funds sent to high-income countries, remittances reached $ 689 billion in 2018, compared to $ 633 billion in 2017, the report said.
Although incumbent operators such as Western Union still dominate the world of remittances, the rise of online payments and mobile technology (the phones themselves becoming agents for bank accounts in some markets). development, as in the case of MPesa) opened an opportunity for new entrants into the field.
Amazon recently teamed up with Western Union to help sell items in emerging markets: the money that has been sent by transfer can now be used to buy goods. And Facebook, anxious to do something about payments and remittances (with very mixed results), is now interested in cryptocurrency, which could be another way of transferring money from one country to another. nobody to another.
That's why, despite all the lack of growth, investors continue to bet big on space. Among the other big winners, Azimo, Remitly and TransferWise, they continue to invest in WorldRemit to develop their own technology to compete with these other companies and expand their existing businesses.
"Over the past eight years, Ismail and his founding team have built a fantastic company that offers its customers a compelling solution and value proposition," said TCV General Partner John Doran in a statement. "Since the transfer of powers to Breon and the new management team last year, the company has continued to build on this platform and has accelerated. We believe that the opportunity and the proposal are broader than ever. "
"After establishing my first partnership with the WorldRemit team in 2014, I saw the company evolve from a London-based start-up to a pioneering global company for the future of the world." remittance market and to make international mobile payments more accessible and affordable for millions of individuals and businesses, "said Harry Nelis of Accel in a statement." This investment and the experience of the CEO of Breon Corcoran, which leads global consumer-centric digital businesses, will help fuel the next phase of global growth, and we are excited to deepen our relationship with the team and help them realize the company's vast potential. . "
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