Canadian fintech startup Payment Rails closes Seed investment round bringing total funding to $1.1M
Montreal, Canada – October 10, 2017 – Payment Rails, an API-first payouts platform for businesses, that enables companies to send fast and low-cost payouts to on-demand workers, suppliers, and employees globally, has closed a seed round bringing total investment funding to $1.1M.
The latest investment round includes participation by angel investors, including current and former executives from VISA, Slack, Currencycloud and American Express, along with participation by Scott Thompson, the former President of PayPal, who also joins Payment Rails as a Board Advisor. Mr. Thompson’s role will include advising founders Ferhan Patel and Tim Nixon on strategic partnerships, key customer acquisition and international expansion.
“I’m excited to be involved with Payment Rails in their mission to simplify global payouts and contribute to building the next generation of global payment infrastructure for businesses,” stated Scott Thompson. “The leadership team at Payment Rails brings an expert-level knowledge of the payments industry and a profound understanding of the verticals they serve. Payment Rails will be a leader in next-gen payment solutions for tomorrow’s global workforce.”
Payment Rails was founded in 2015 by Ferhan Patel (co-founder and President) and Tim Nixon (co-founder and CEO) with a mission to solve the payments headaches of businesses and their rapidly growing on-demand global workforces.
Payment Rails’ white-label payment infrastructure allows businesses to send payments domestically and internationally through:
- Real-time networks
- Faster payment systems
- International ACH
- Global banking networks
- in 150+ currencies to 220+ countries
- for as low as $1 per transaction
- with real-time and transparent FX rates.
Payment Rails’ infrastructure leverages Blockchain and Ripple to optimize treasury and liquidity management, and utilizes AI and machine learning to optimize payment routing based on speed, cost, partner and FX rates. Payment Rails also incorporates AI and fuzzy logic for AML watchlist screening, and machine learning for fraud detection to deliver one of the most advanced payment platforms for businesses available.
“Our vision is to enable all businesses to offer an exceptional payout experience to their on-demand workers and suppliers, whether that business is a startup or a Fortune 500 company” said Payment Rails’ Co-founder and CEO Tim Nixon. “Our focus on delivering the fastest global payments at fair and transparent prices, coupled with our easy integration, is what businesses have been demanding. With the guidance of industry experts like Scott, we’re on the way to achieving this vision.”
“We are thrilled to have Scott join our team as an advisor and investor. Scott is an industry giant having led PayPal and making it a dominant force in payments. His experience and expertise will be extremely valuable as we scale our platform globally,” announced Ferhan Patel, Co-Founder and President of Payment Rails. “Payment Rails is honored to be backed by our seed-round investors, like Scott,” explained Patel. “As we launch our business payouts platform, we truly appreciate the expertise that Scott, who through his leadership scaled PayPal to over 105M active users, brings to the Payment Rails board.”
Thompson is currently the CEO of Tuition.io, the United States’ first and most comprehensive employer-funded student loan contribution platform. Prior to Tution.io, Thompson served as CEO of ShopRunner and CEO of Yahoo. Before that, he served as President of PayPal during its most rapid growth period. During his tenure, he helped grow revenues from $1 billion to $4.4 billion and established PayPal as the leading global online payment service.
Payment Rails is currently in public beta, with an official launch scheduled for November 2017. Payment Rails will be presenting a demonstration of its platform at SIBOS 2017 on October 17th.
About Payment Rails
Payment Rails is the next-generation API-first payouts platform that enables businesses to send payments to any individual or company in over 220 countries, in any currency and to any payment method. Through its powerful API, businesses can access Payment Rails’ global banking, international ACH, faster payment systems and real-time networks, on a pay-as-you-go basis with no setup costs.
Payment Rails simplifies global mass payouts for online marketplaces, on-demand and share economy platforms, ad networks, affiliate platforms, app stores, and growing businesses with international payout needs. For more information, visit www.paymentrails.com or Twitter and Facebook
