Behind the Investment: Thunes – Enabling the Future of Crossborder Payments

Cross border payments are critical for our global economy. From the migrant worker sending money back home to the business procuring from international suppliers, over $130T of volumes were processed in 2019. This is a massive market, but legacy infrastructure (correspondent banking) is high friction. It lacks transparency, it’s structurally expensive, and it takes far longer to process transactions. Global connectivity is only increasing. We need something stronger to power our financial infrastructure.

Fintech companies are scrambling to build solutions for the next generation of cross border payments. Rather than building out and maintaining the backend piece-by-piece, fintech leaders are increasingly looking toward APIs to power their platforms. While we’ve seen a proliferation of API-based infrastructure companies for North American and European corridors, emerging markets are being left behind.

This is where Thunes comes in. Thunes has architected a proprietary payments network with a focus on the long tail of underserved, hard-to-reach markets. Its platform powers interoperability to facilitate payments across a wide range of methods, including M-Pesa and regional mobile wallets. The Thunes API provides fintechs, money transfer operators, mobile wallet providers and payment service providers with fast time to market, reduced regulatory/financial risk, and best-in-class infrastructure. Customers can refocus their energy to front-end product design and acquisition of new payment volumes.

We first met Thunes CEO Peter De Caluwe back in October of 2020. Across years of experience as a payments operator at Naspers, Ogone, and TransferTo, we knew he and the team had the experience needed to build a leading cross-border payments infrastructure platform. We’re thrilled to partner with Thunes as they build the financial backbone of Africa, LatAm, and Southeast Asia.