Wyre cross-border payments blockchain raises $5.8m in Series A
San Francisco fintech company Wyre has won $5.8m in a Series A funding round led by Chinese investor Amphora Capital, alongside payment firms China 9fBank and Baofoo.com. The news coincides with the launch of the company's cross-border payments platform, also called Wyre, available in the US and Asia. The funding will help Wyre expand its network to Europe and Latin America. Wyre uses blockchain technology to facilitate $35m of cross-border transactions per month and $1m international payments daily.

"It is estimated that the demand for cross-border payment from Chinese companies and investors could reach $1.5 trillion USD within the next five years. Wyre is well positioned as a market leader to facilitate those transactions faster and at a lower cost. We believe Wyre's cross-border technology will revolutionize global payment and remittance and have since made a sizable investment into the company," said Sam Lin, chief financial officer of 9fBank.com. "Wyre's continued tremendous growth in 2016 will no doubt carry into 2017 and years beyond."

Currently, there's a monthly volume of $35M being transferred in cross-border business payments via the blockchain and Wyre accounts for 90% of those transactions.

How Wyre Works

Wyre reduces the amount of time and money it takes to make cross-border payments by transferring money in same day transfers at the most competitive exchange rates available today. Cross-border payments typically take 24-72 hours or more and charge ~1 - 4.5% of the transaction in fees depending on the service; this accounts for a projected $360 billion in fees in 2019.*

Wyre aims to be the new infrastructure for well-established payment heavyweights who can leverage their blockchain-based technology platform to make their businesses faster and more cost effective.

1) Wyre takes deposits from large payment companies that plug into their API.

2) The payment companies pass across thousands of transactions onto Wyre's blockchain based payment rails.

3) Wyre then delivers the funds as instructed at the most competitive rate possible, usually at a rate between ~1 - 4.5% and in the shortest amount of time, typically in less than six hours, compared to the industry standard which is 24-72 hours.

Wyre acts as the intermediary between the more intimidating "blockchain" technology in which some companies may not be familiar with, or unsure how to get started. Wyre removes all the confusion from the learning curve, and provides a simple, slick API for companies to get involved without needing to educate themselves on the nuances of this complex, new technology.

International Companies Using Wyre

Wyre processes more than $1M in international payments per day, experiences nearly 25% month-over-month growth and anticipates being one of the largest cross-border payment platforms within the next 12 months.

Wyre has been quietly operating for the past 10 months in a private beta with select large-scale business, including NihaoPay that powers payments for WeChat.

"Wyre has revolutionized international payments," said Yuanbo Wang, chief executive officer of You.World, former chief executive officer of NihaoPay. "Our customers are happier than ever with the speed and super low cost of money transfers."

"Current wire services are difficult, expensive and take too long. In a generation of instant gratification, we believe that money transfer should be too," said Michael Dunworth, chief executive officer and co-founder, Wyre.

For more information and to begin using Wyre, visit www.sendWyre.com

About Wyre

Businesses across the globe use Wyre to transfer money across borders from country-to-country, quickly and cheaply. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wyre is a FinTech company that processes more than $2 million in international payments per day using the blockchain. The company is seeing nearly 25% month-over-month growth and anticipates being one of the largest cross-border payment platforms by 2018. Wyre is backed by Draper Associates, 9fBank, Amphora Capital, Baofoo, Digital Currency Group, and prominent Silicon Valley angel investors and has raised $7.5M to date.

* http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/global-payments-2015-a-healthy-industry-confronts-disruption

SOURCE Wyre