[Pulse 2.0] Cross-Border Financial Platform Company Taptap Send Secures $65 Million In Series B

Originally posted on Pulse 2.0

• Taptap Send — a community-focused cross-border financial platform — recently announced a $65 million Series B funding round. These are the details.

Taptap Send — a community-focused cross-border financial platform — recently announced a $65 million Series B funding round led by Spark Capital with participation from Unbound and previous leads Reid Hoffman and Canaan Partners, along with Slow Ventures, Breyer Capital, Wamda Capital, Flourish Ventures, and additional investors from the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Taptap Send’s total funding now exceeds $80 million.

Taptap Send provides individuals with a simple and convenient platform to send cross-border payments instantly and without fee. Plus the company enables remittances for some of the most underserved markets globally. The new funding round will allow the team to expand to additional diaspora communities, invest in product development and hire new talent to further improve the quality of service.

The formal $540 billion remittance market is the largest source of capital for low and middle income countries, surpassing foreign direct investment and official development assistance, combined. And informal remittances are estimated to be almost as large as those through formal channels: more than 7x since 2002.

The mobile money revolution has also changed the limit’s of what is possible with cross border flows, particularly in frontier markets. And connecting over a billion people to the financial grid for the first time, mobile money allows more people to be reached more quickly, securely and efficiently than ever before. Plus Taptap Send is building products to capture this opportunity, providing senders peace of mind with a secure and affordable solution, and recipients with an accessible, convenient way to receive this capital.

COVID has not only had a devastating impact on many recipient communities. But it also made traditional box-store solutions even more difficult to access. Reflecting this need, there has been an acceleration of the shift to simple, digital, mobile solutions.

While the World Bank predicted a 25% decline in remittances since the onset of COVID, Taptap has seen more than 8x growth; during this time, the team has more than doubled to 100+ with an additional 13 receive markets launched including Bangladesh, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam beyond those previously offered: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Zambia.

KEY QUOTES:

“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.”

— Michael Faye, co-founder and CEO of Taptap Send

“We’ve looked at a lot of fintech companies in the space, and think Taptap’s team and community-led approach are best in class. We couldn’t be more excited to be joining them on our mission to bring low-cost, accessible, cross-border financial products to underserved diaspora populations around the world.”]

— James Kuklinski of Spark Capital

“I left Ghana 17 years ago as an economic migrant. The plan was to make money to send home and eventually go back to help build the economy of Ghana. When I found Taptap, I realized I had the opportunity to do that now and to build something to improve the lives of my people: my little family, my wider family, my village of Peki, my country of Ghana, my continent of Africa and my world. Taptap is the fastest, easiest, safest, and lowest-cost solution I’ve used and I am proud to be spending my time to make the product even better and bring it to others who also want to send money to their loved ones.”

— Mawutor Abraham, who leads Taptap Send Africa

“I invest for scaled global impact and team, and Taptap is among the best combinations I’ve seen.”

— Reid Hoffman, who led Taptap Send’s initial round and participated in the Series B