Valar Ventures leads $6m round for TransferWise

The series-B round also saw previous investor Index Ventures inject fresh capital into TransferWise alongside Kima Ventures and business angel firm SV Angel.

The new funding will be used to expand the company's currency coverage and allow currency exchange from new users in European countries such as Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Israel, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and further countries in Australasia.

Previous funding
TransferWise raised $1.3m in a series-A funding round in 2012. IA led the round, which saw Index contribute to the financing alongside a number of angel investors and seed capital venture firms.

Company
TransferWise was founded in London in 2011 by a former Skype employee and an ex-PwC and Deloitte employee. The company currently employs 35 staff and has an additional office in Estonia.

The company's business model is to provide cheaper foreign currency exchange rates than banks for both peer-to-peer currency exchanges and overseas business payments.

TransferWise currently supports currency transfers in GBP to EUR (and vice versa) as well as pounds or euros to USD, PLN, CHF, DKK, SEK, NOK and JPY. Users can also transfer PLN, CHF, DKK, SEK and NOK to pounds or euros.

Users can transfer up to £1m using the site. According to the company's website, its exchange service has transferred more than £125m and has saved its customers £5m in bank fees.

People
Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann are TransferWise's founders. Hinrikus serves as the company's executive chairman and Käärmann is the company's CEO.

Peter Thiel is a partner at Valar. Roger Ehrenberg is a managing partner at IA and sits on the board of TransferWise.

Advisers
Company - Jag Shaw Baker (Legal).

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