Fintech TerraPay raises $9.6 million from Prime Ventures, IFC, and Partech
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, March 2, 2020: TerraPay announced today
that a consortium of
investors, including Prime Ventures, Partech Africa and management acquired the
company for an undisclosed sum. In addition, the same investors, joined by IFC,
invested $9.6 million in TerraPay to fund the company’s expansion.
TerraPay, a company incubated by Comviva,
the India-headquartered mobile solutions provider, provides Payment
Infrastructure Services that help more people around the world to transfer
money quickly, safely, and affordably. The company does this by enabling
payment service providers such as banks, mobile money operators, money transfer
operators or other payment providers to instantly connect to each other at a
low cost. Since its start in 2015, TerraPay has acquired more than 25 licenses
to operate in over 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe and is expanding
globally.
Ambar Sur, Founder and Chief Executive
Officer of TerraPay, said: “We
believe in our mission to address financial inclusion by making real time
national, regional and global payments accessible to everyone. We are excited
by this validation from our marquee investors, and look forward to growing
rapidly and reaching most of the world’s underserved in the coming years.”
TerraPay management developed the
fintech company to address the pain points people in many countries experience
when trying to make payments across different channels. The cost to send money
to and from emerging countries, especially in Africa and Asia, are some of the
highest globally, averaging 9.3 percent compared to the global average of 7
percent, yet remittances are a major contributor to the GDP of recipient
countries. A large portion of the remittance cost is related to cash handling
at the sending and receiving end. At the same time, the digital payment
ecosystem is fragmented with many mobile money providers developing their own network
alongside financial institutions with no real interoperability solution.
TerraPay is a game-changer
because it connects MTOs, mobile money networks and financial institutions to a
simple, central platform where all payment players can reliably connect to any
financial network, facilitating a seamless end-to-end customer payment experience.
TerraPay’s Payments Infrastructure
opens the possibility to include merchants traditionally excluded from credit
card systems, allow companies to pay salaries through mobile money accounts and
help banks to settle remittances in real-time.
Pieter Welten, a partner at Prime
Ventures said: “We identified TerraPay as an attractive investment opportunity.
Led by a strong and experienced management team, TerraPay has a unique market
position and strong economic moat comprising of licenses and regulatory
approvals, a world-class digital payments platform and global network of
partners. Our investment should allow the company to further expand and scale
its operations.”
Paulo de Bolle, IFC’s Global
Director, Financial Institutions Group, said: “By adding TerraPay to IFC’s
growing fintech investment portfolio, we are supporting the company to grow and
expand, while helping to lower the costs and streamline the process to send
money home. Fintechs like TerraPay play a vital role in increasing financial
inclusion in emerging markets.”
“We are excited to join efforts
with an outstanding group of investors and a superb team for the next part of
TerraPay’s journey,” said Cyril Collon, General Partner at Partech Africa. “We
have been impressed by the cutting-edge platform TerraPay’s teams have
developed. This platform will play a key role in reaching the interoperability
goals necessary for true financial inclusion. The impact for end-customers is
already massive in terms of quality of service, reliability and speed.”
Since its inception, the TerraPay
founders focused on: (i) developing a robust, scalable and agile tech platform;
and (ii) compliance and the acquisition of payment intermediary and money
transfer licenses. TerraPay has built partnerships with global money transfer companies
including Western Union, Visa, Xpress Money, MoneyTrans, Paga, Ria, Instant
Cash, Ripple and MoneyGram.
Manoranjan Mohapatra, Chief
Executive Officer of Comviva said: “We
have been proud to be part of the progress that TerraPay has made over the last
five years. The driving philosophy of all our incubations is to create
significant value for our customer, community, shareholders and employees. The
solutions we invest in should create value within the Comviva enterprise, or
grow on their own to achieve their product vision; while generating worthwhile
value for the shareholders. TerraPay’s forward path is in alignment with that
underlying purpose.”
TerraPay has been advised by the FinTech M&A team of
specialized investment bank Kempen & Co and Van Doorne, a law firm based in The Netherlands.
About Prime Ventures
Prime Ventures is a leading
venture capital and growth equity firm focused on investing in European
technology (related) companies. Over the years, the firm has invested in more
than 50 companies across Europe such as Global Collect, Takeaway.com, Mendix,
iwoca and Meero. From its offices in The Netherlands and the UK the independent
partnership manages over 700 million euro in committed capital. For more
information please visit, www.primeventures.com
About IFC
IFC—a sister organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group—is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work with more than 2,000 businesses worldwide, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities where they are needed most. In fiscal year 2019, we delivered more than $19 billion in long-term financing for developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. TerraPay is the latest addition to IFC’s growing FinTech portfolio in emerging markets including mobile money operator BKash in Bangladesh, merchant acquirer Fawry in Egypt, payment processor Interswitch in Nigeria, online lender Branch in Africa and other cross-border remittance players. For more information, visit www.ifc.org
About Partech Partners
Partech is a global investment firm with offices in San
Francisco, Paris, Berlin and Dakar. We bring together capital, operational
experience and strategic support for entrepreneurs at seed, venture and growth
stages across multiple continents, with over $1.5B investment capacity.
Investments range from $200K to $50M in a wide range of technologies and
businesses for enterprises and consumers, from software, digital brands and
services, to hardware and deep tech across all major industries. Companies
backed by Partech have completed more than 20 initial public offerings and more
than 50 strategic exits above $100M.
Our current portfolio: https://partechpartners.com/companies/
For further enquiries, please contact:
For TerraPay
Sundeep Mehta
Sundeep.mehta@comviva.com
+91-9910030732
Devon Maylie
dmaylie@ifc.org
+27 83 782 9912
Remco Janssen
remco@proudlyrepresents.com
+31-614787713
Isabelle Tresson
itresson@partechpartners.com
+33 786 08 85 85