WorldRemit Limited
Available inEnglish, French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, German
Founded2010; 14 years ago (2010)
HeadquartersLondon
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Founder(s)Ismail Ahmed
Richard Igoe
Catherine Wines
ChairmanIsmail Ahmed (Non-Executive Chairman)
CEOBreon Corcoran[1]
ServicesFinancial services, Remittance
Employees848 (2021)[2]
URLwww.worldremit.com/en

WorldRemit is a digital cross border remittance business that provides international money transfer and remittance services in more than 130 countries and over 70 currencies. It was founded in 2010 by Ismail Ahmed, Catherine Wines, and Richard Igoe.[3]

History

WorldRemit was founded in 2010 by Ismail Ahmed, a former compliance advisor to the United Nations Development Programme.[4][5] In October 2018, the firm announced that he would be stepping into the role of executive chairman and the company would be bringing in Breon Corcoran as CEO.[6] During his tenure WorldRemit acquired SendWave[7] and Zepz was created as the group business housing both the WorldRemit and SendWave brands and businesses. Breon Corcoran left the organization in August 2022,[8] when Mark Lenhard, former COO of bill.com, was appointed Group CEO of Zepz.[9]

Operations

WorldRemit focuses on cross border remittance money transfers from over 50 countries to over 130 countries around the world.[10] For those receiving money, it offers pay out options including bank deposit, mobile money, mobile airtime top-up and cash pick-up as well as cash delivery.

The firm has a network of more than 5,000 corridors. It is connected to mobile money services globally, including Zaad (Somaliland), M-Pesa (Kenya), MTN (Africa and Asia), and bKash (Bangladesh). As of October 2019, it can send funds to 115 different countries; this includes all African countries except for Sudan, South Sudan, Eswatini, Eritrea, Libya, and Algeria.[11]

In 2021 WorldRemit acquired Sendwave, another cross-border digital payments company. In 2020 the two processed 50m transactions and facilitated the sending of over $10bn.[citation needed]

Funding

WorldRemit is backed by venture capital companies Accel Partners[12] and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV).[13]

In February 2015, the firm announced a $100m Series B funding round led by TCV.[14] It was also announced that TCV General Partner John Rosenberg would join its board.[15]

In 2017, the firm received $40 million in their Series C round of funding, with LeapFrog Investments as the lead investor.[3] In 2019, it raised a $175 million Series D funding round, led by TCV, Accel, and Leapfrog Investments.[16]

References

  1. ^ Kleinman, Mark (22 October 2018). "UK fintech star WorldRemit transfers in Corcoran as new boss". Sky News.
  2. ^ "WorldRemit company profile". Craft. Retrieved 15 February 2021.
  3. ^ a b Lunden, Ingrid (6 December 2017). "WorldRemit nabs $40M at a $670M valuation to boost its money transfer business". Techcrunch.
  4. ^ "WorldRemit - About Us". World Remit.
  5. ^ Smale, Will. "The man changing the world of remittances". BBC News.
  6. ^ "WorldRemit brings in former Paddy Power boss as CEO". sky News. 22 October 2018.
  7. ^ "WorldRemit to Acquire Sendwave". www.businesswire.com. 2020-08-25. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
  8. ^ "WorldRemit chief Corcoran steps down as IPO prospects stall". Sky News. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
  9. ^ "WorldRemit Parent Names Lenhard, Ex-Bill.com Executive, as CEO". Bloomberg.com. 2022-08-31. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
  10. ^ "About us". WorldRemit. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
  11. ^ "Send money to Africa". WorldRemit. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  12. ^ Lunden, Ingrid. "Money Transfer Startup WorldRemit Collects Its First Investment, $40M From Accel". TechCrunch.
  13. ^ "Somali Entrepreneur Raises $100 Million For Money Transfer Startup WorldRemit". Forbes.
  14. ^ "London money transfer startup just raised $100m". Business Insider.
  15. ^ "WorldRemit announces John Rosenberg to its Board and having raised $100m in Series B funding round led by TCV". Talent4Boards.
  16. ^ "WorldRemit raises $175m in Series D funding". WorldRemit.
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