London-based TransferWise (with Estonian roots) is looking like it’s on a golden rocketship up after adding a $58 million funding round led by Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. TransferWise has now raised $91 million to date with name brand investors like Sequoia, Peter Thiel, Index Ventures, and Richard Branson.
For those of you just catching up with the company, TransferWise provides currency transfers at a rate much closer to the spot rate with no upfront fees – cutting into the big banks’ business where it’s not uncommon to need to pay €20-50 to transfer any sum of money with a poor exchange rate.
The company has been successful in building momentum, perhaps due to their #2edgy4you media campaigns like their “nothing to hide” campaign through London and their F¥€K the banks campaign. Roughly a year ago in April of 2014 TransferWise announced they’ve moved £1 Billion in money transfers, today that number stands at £3 Billion.
The Wall Street Journal reports that soon the company will be opening offices in the U.S. where it’s aiming to win banking edibility. Our speculation is that after this Series C TransferWise will not only have the cash to then be better poised to IPO on the U.S. markets, or will be more attractive for a large acquisition.
Additionally TechCrunch reports that TransferWise has been in talks with Facebook for remittance services, perhaps plugging into WhatsApp like WhatsApp’s Chinese competitor, WeChat, provides.
TransferWise was founded in 2011 by ex-Skype employees Kristo Kaarman and Taavet Hinrikus.
