Index Ventures et al. inject $25m into TransferWise

Richard Branson and Valar Ventures, the US-based VC backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, also took part in the round alongside other investors including The Accelerator Group.

TransferWise has stated it will use the capital for marketing activity, in particular to highlight the fees applied to conventional international money transfers. The company says these fees are usually disguised within exchange rates.

The investors cited TransferWise's potential for disrupting the foreign exchange industry and its ability to bring transparency to the market as motivations behind their backing.

Last month, another London-based fintech company, The Currency Cloud – which includes TransferWise among its customers – raised $10m in a series-B funding.

Previous funding
According to unquote" data, IA, Index, Kima and Seedcamp invested $1.3m in the first round of funding for TransferWise in April 2012.

Valar led a $6m series-B round for the company in May last year with Index and Kima also taking part in the round.

Investment in the company now totals $33m, with additional investors including Betfair's CEO David Yu and another PayPal co-founder Max Levchin.

Company
Founded in 2011, TransferWise is a London-based international money transfer service. It was developed by the founders of Skype and PayPal and its technology is intended to remove fees that it says have traditionally been hidden in exchange rates.

TransferWise has more than 100 employees and has grown by 20-30% per month. Since its inception the company has made transfers of more than £1bn.

People
Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann are co-founders of TransferWise. Giuseppe Zocco and Neil Rimer are co-founders and partners at Index. Roger Ehrenberg is the founder and Managing Partner of IA. Xavier Niel and Jérémie Berrebi are co-founders of Kima.

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• Topics
• Financials
• UK / Ireland
• Expansion
• Index Ventures
• United Kingdom