Remittance platform Taptap Send raises $65 million

Cross-border remittance platfrom Taptap Send has raised $65 million in a Series B funding round.

The new capital raise was 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.

Founded by the founders of the non-profit philanthropic cash transfer outfit GiveDirectly and Segovia, the B2B mobile payment gateway acquired by Crown Agents Bank, Taptap Send provides individuals with a fee-free platform for transferring cross-border payments, serving frontier markets across Africa and Asia.

Whereas the World Bank predicted a 25% decline in remittances since the onset of Covid, Taptap has seen more than 8x growth and doubled its team 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.

“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,” says Michael Faye, co-founder and CEO of Taptap Send. “We’re committed to reducing global inequality by providing accessible, usable financial tools to individuals who need them most.”

He says he new capital will allow the firm to expand to additional diaspora communities, invest in product development and hire new talent.