Cross-border fintech is hot right now. The cross-border payments market is expected to reach more than $250 trillion by 2027, according to the Bank of England. And experts say fintechs are giving banks a run for their money here (pun intended), particularly in the business-to-business sector where artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain come into play – all emerging technologies that fintechs love it.
So it’s no surprise that one of the trends among Y Combinator’s group of nearly 30 fintech startups in Winter 2024 is how to more easily move money globally. Here’s a look at what I saw at this week’s YC Demo Day:
Number
Numo’s verified profile is attached to every invoice sent. (Image credit: Numo)
What he does: Offshore banking for international entrepreneurs
Numo focuses on payroll systems and banking services for remote and international entrepreneurs. Users benefit from a US bank account and access to low-cost local payment channels. CEO Derrick Wolbert met co-founders Reuben Balik and Q Carlson at Hologram.com, a global cellular network. Wolbert said the company “brought together the best operators in each market” so users can withdraw their funds instantly in their local currency. The startup first tested this in Nigeria and already has 1,000 registered users and 330 contractors verified by Numo. Wolbert called Numo “financial infrastructure for the next generation of tech workers.”
Cleva
Image credit: Cleva
What he does: US-based bank for Africa
Similar to Numo, Cleva offers a US bank account where users, even those who are not residents, can receive funds and then convert them to their local currency. Co-founder Tolu Alabi previously built cross-border origination and banking products at Stripe, while Philip Abel built multi-region infrastructure for enterprises including AWS and Twilio. Alabi said one of the driving forces behind the startup was the fact that about 70% of Nigerians lost their wealth last year due to currency devaluation. With Cleva, “Africans can receive dollars from anywhere in the world,” Alabi said. This market is quite large, $18 billion, she said. There’s really no greater proof of the market than achieving profitability, and that’s exactly where Cleva finds itself – six months after launch. It also generates $120,000 in monthly revenue.
xPay
Image credit: xPay
What he does: International payments API for businesses in India and Southeast Asia
xPay acts as an international reseller and allows merchants to “immediately start selling internationally, without a bank account or entity in the United States,” said CEO Aniket Gupta. The company claims it can help businesses sell in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia with a single integration and in “one-tenth” the time. xPay launched four weeks ago and already has 25 contracts signed and more than 200 people on the waiting list. Could this be a potential future acquisition of Stripe? We’ll have to wait and see. But for now, the company expects to process an annualized transaction volume of $5 million by the end of the month.
Fast
Image credit: Swift
What he does: Instant money movement anywhere in the world
Moving money from one account to another still takes days, so two engineers, David Lalor and Rakeeb Hossain, launched Swift to provide a “unified API for instant, risk-free funding,” according to the Company. They are implementing instant international account-to-account transfers to accelerate the flow of more than $150 trillion passing through banking networks each year. Swift’s first product is an instant deposit API for digital brokerages and banks that already works on Venmo, Zelle and FedNow.
Infinity
Image credit: Infini
What he does: Cross-border banking for small businesses in India
We’ve heard from a lot of childhood friends over the past couple of days, so it was refreshing to see two siblings forming a business. In fact, for Sourav Choraria and his brother Sidharth Choraria, this is their second startup together after a health tech startup that they sold. Sourav, former head of growth at wealth management giant Paytm Money, and Sidharth, former project manager at Amazon who helped launch the Appstore in-app purchasing SDK.
Now the couple is expanding into the fintech space with Infinity. The company has built a cash management platform and is now adding multi-currency accounts and global payments. Indian companies account for $700 billion in cross-border transactions annually, and Infinity makes 1% of these transactions. This $7 billion opportunity translates into a huge opportunity. In three months, Infinity has secured 110 customers and is growing 20% week over week, according to Sourav.
“Our goal is to create a financial oasis for cross-border businesses,” Sourav said.
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