TransferWise announced today a new partnership with Singapore-based fintech Aspire, concurrent with news of its valuation jumping to US$ 5 billion. Aspire provides digital financial services such as credit lines, business accounts and corporate cards for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
In this partnership, Aspire will be integrated with “TransferWise for Banks”. With this integration, entrepreneurs and businesses will be able to tap into TransferWise’s fast and low-cost international transfers directly through their Aspire accounts. They claim that the transfers will be around 4 times cheaper on average compared to banks.
Aspire’s co-founder, Andrea Baronchelli said,
“We’re excited that small businesses and business owners using Aspire can now make international payments through our partnership with TransferWise.Leveraging TransferWise’s open API allows us to do this without much additional and expensive build, enabling us to unlock cross-border payments for our thousands of customers quickly and easily.”
This announcement coincided with TransferWise’s US$ 319 million secondary share sale which puts its valuation at US$ 5 billion – a 43% uplift since May 2019. To date, the company has attracted over US$ 1 billion in primary and secondary sale transactions.
New investor D1 Capital Partners and existing shareholder Lone Pine Capital led the round while shareholders Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Investments and LocalGlobe expanded their holdings. Also, Vulcan Capital came on board as a new investor.
Kristo Käärmann, CEO and co-founder of TransferWise said,
“TransferWise is a fast growing, profitable business, guided by a mission to build the best way to move money in the world – instant, convenient, transparent and eventually free. Nine years in, we’re saving our customers £1 billion in hidden fees every year.
“We’ve been funded exclusively by our customers for the last few years and we didn’t need to raise external funding for the company. This secondary round provides an opportunity for new investors to come in, alongside rewarding the investors and employees who’ve helped us succeed so far.”
Featured image credit: Transferwise
