TechCrunch March 12. 2014
WorldRemit, a London-based startup that is tackling the antiquated consumer money wiring/remittance market with an easy and traceable online solution, has collected some money of its own: a $40 million investment from Accel Partners, the storied VC that has backed big consumer plays like Supercell and Facebook but also a number of financial services startups like GoCardless, Funding Circle and Braintree. This is the startup’s first VC investment, and one of the largest-ever Series A rounds achieved in Europe.
WorldRemit is addressing two different business opportunities with its product. The first is a basic consumer issue: there are a number of people who live abroad or immigrate to make more money, with the intention of sending some of those earnings back home — home being a range of different countries and currencies around the globe. They typically want easy, cheap and reliable ways of doing that, but many of the most common routes today involve spending the time travelling to a physical location that offers Western Union or MoneyGram transfers, paying a large commission fee, and then getting recipients to do the same at their end.