BVNK, the crypto-powered payments and banking platform for businesses, has secured USD 40m in Series-A funding to drive growth as it brings traditional finance and crypto together. The investment will fuel BVNK’s launch into new markets, including the USA, accelerate its acquisition of regulatory licences, and support the expansion of product capabilities.
While traditional payments running on legacy infrastructure suffer from excessive fees and slow processing times, the attributes of cryptocurrencies — digitally-native, offering almost-instant transactions and requiring fewer intermediaries — provide a foundation for more efficient financial services. BVNK has leveraged these capabilities to build infrastructure that powers online, treasury, and cross-border payments for both crypto and fiat currencies.
Today, BVNK processes over USD 2b in annualised payments volume and has more than doubled monthly payment volumes since January 2022. BVNK is focused on serving global businesses that operate across borders in crypto and fiat currencies with ultra-fast, compliant and secure payments and banking. BVNK sees an opportunity to build the next generation of what Visa and Mastercard built globally: a network for moving money around the world.
The fundraising round was led by Tiger Global alongside other notable investors including The Raba Partnership, Avenir, Kingsway Capital, Nordstar, Concentric, and Base Capital. Angel investors included the founders of Anchorage Digital, Coinlist, Eco.com and TrueLayer; Microsoft’s ex-head of strategy and former Stripe and Jump Trading executives.
BVNK Co-Founder and CEO, Jesse Hemson-Struthers, said: “We are excited to partner with Tiger Global given their in-depth understanding of the global crypto, payments and banking landscape and with them having backed key crypto infrastructure companies, such as NEAR protocol and TRM, and payments companies Stripe and Revolut.”
Hemson-Struthers continued: “Mainstream adoption of crypto is skyrocketing. As more transactions are carried out in cryptocurrency, there is growing demand among businesses for a banking platform that can accept crypto payments, settle crypto assets and bridge seamlessly between fiat and crypto economies. BVNK launched to address this demand and plug a gap in the market. The demand for crypto payment services has far exceeded even what we were expecting, and this Series-A funding will enable us to expand our services, markets and operations.”
BVNK’s API-first platform enables merchants to seamlessly integrate cryptocurrency-powered payments into their operations without having to manage any of the complexity of collecting and converting crypto, on-ramping customers, or managing payouts. Where required, merchants can accept payments in cryptocurrency but receive settlements in standard fiat currencies. Using the BVNK Business Account, customers can integrate crypto into their payment and treasury flows.
Building on new, crypto-powered infrastructure rather than legacy technology, BVNK’s solution directly addresses a range of common pain points for international businesses — for instance astonishingly high fees, excessive operational overheads and the complexity of managing the movement of funds in a basket of currencies across multiple jurisdictions.
Alex Cook, Partner, Tiger Global, said: “Rapid adoption of cryptocurrencies by global businesses adds complexity to treasury management, banking, and payments. BVNK’s platform helps companies seamlessly switch between fiat and crypto. We believe BVNK, with its focus on product differentiation and compliance, is poised to be a market leader, and we’re excited to partner with Jesse and the team.”
Since its inception, the business has succeeded in attracting numerous high-profile executives to the ranks of its leadership team. Darran Pienaar, BVNK”s Chief Financial Officer, joined the company at launch, having previously held senior treasury roles at Marks & Spencer and Ebury. Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, George Davis, previously led payments at open banking innovator Truelayer. Recent appointments include Maximilian von Both (former legal counsel for PayPal and Senior Vice President of Compliance for Paysafe Group) as Chief Legal, Risk and Compliance Officer and Matt Barclay (who held regional director roles at Meltwater Group) as Chief Revenue Officer.
BVNK is looking to further expand its senior team with significant hires in product, engineering and commercial operations.
About BVNK
Headquartered in London, BVNK is the ‘go to’ crypto-powered payments and banking platform for global businesses. As the worlds of traditional finance and digital assets converge, we help businesses incorporate cryptocurrencies into corporate treasury operations. Via a single account, customers can bridge between fiat currencies and digital assets to manage payment, yield, trading and custody in support of their business goals. With a focus on regulatory compliance and acquiring appropriate licences, and through partnerships with best-in-class institutional crypto custody solutions, lending desks and liquidity pools, BVNK is the banking and payments platform for crypto-native and crypto-curious businesses.