Taptap Send, a cross-border remittance platform has raised $65 million in a Series B funding round. This new capital funding round was led by Spark Capital, with significant participation by Unbound and past leads Canaan Partners and Reid Hoffman. Others who participated in this round include Breyer Capital, Wamda Capital, Slow Ventures, and Flourish Ventures, together with more investors from Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.
The remittance platform’s total funding now surpasses $80 million. Launched by the founders of the non-profit philanthropic cash transfer outfit GiveDirectly together with Segovia, the B2B mobile payment gateway bought by Crown Agents Bank.
Taptap Send offers people a fee-free platform for transferring cross-border payments, serving the frontier markets across Asia and Africa. While the World Bank forecasted a 25% drop in remittances since the onset of the pandemic, Taptap has recorded over 800% growth and doubled its team to over 100.
The company also launched 13 more receive markets launched in Pakistan, the Republic of the Congo, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Cameroon, DRC, Vietnam, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Madagascar. The previously-existing markets include Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Zambia.
Michael Faye, co-founder and CEO of Taptap Send, said:
“With the pandemic pushing more than a hundred million people into extreme poverty and countless others into economic hardship, the importance of capital and the ease of moving it where it’s most needed has rarely been greater. We’re committed to reducing global inequality by providing accessible, usable financial tools to individuals who need them most.”
He insisted that the new capital will enable the company to expand to more diaspora communities, invest in product development and hire some new talent.
