UK – TransferWise, a London, UK-based money transfer company, announced a secondary sales amounting to a total of $319m at a new valuation of $5 billion.
The round allowed shareholders and employees to sell some of their holdings to other new and existing investors. The round was led by existing investors Lone Pine Capital and new investors D1 Capital Partners. Vulcan Capital also came on board as a new investor. Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Investments and LocalGlobe expanded their existing holdings. To date, the company has attracted over $1 billion in primary and secondary share sale transactions. Co-founded by Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann (the current CEO), TransferWise provides a core money transfer product, along with a borderless account for its audience of expats, freelancers, and travellers, which holds over £2 billion in current deposits. One million debit cards have been issued by the firm since 2018. The company has recently launched partnerships with small business favourites Xero and GoCardless and ten banks across three continents, including neobanks Monzo, N26, bunq, and from today, Aspire in Singapore, now offer the company’s service to their customers through the TransferWise for Banks API. TransferWise now serves 8 million customers worldwide, processing £4bn in cross-border payments alone every month. It has over 2,200 people in the team across fourteen global offices. The company recently announced new FCA permissions to offer savings and investments options in the UK via the TransferWise borderless account, with the new product set to launch in the next 12 months. 29/07/2020
