Rapyd Raises $40M For ‘FinTech-As-A-Service’

Rapyd, the Silicon Valley-based startup that offers a slew of financial services from payments to ID verifications from one API, has raised $40 million in venture funding.

The Series B round of funding was led by General Catalyst and Stripe, the digital payments company. With the round of fundraising, the company has raised a total of $60 million. Proceeds from the capital raise will go to add more functions to the platform, acquire new customers and increase the headcount.

Through Rapyd’s single API, customers get access to a set of FinTech and payment capabilities enabling them to accept alternative payment methods. It also has a tokenized identity management and compliance solution. “Our core thesis is that Rapyd is bridging the gap between robust economies and an increasingly important group of stakeholders in global commerce: the unbanked and the non-credit/debit card economy,” wrote General Catalyst in a Medium post announcing the investment. “This group represents over 2 billion people and ~72% of online payments today (local bank transfers, e-wallets, and cash).”

General Catalyst said the startup has spent the past few years building out a “network of networks” through deals with local payment networks across the globe. It has a heavy focus on emerging markets and now has a global network of 1.6 million cash collection endpoints and more than 100 different e-wallets to support non-card based payments in more than 65 currencies and more than 150 countries.

According to a report in TechCrunch, it’s not clear what role Stripe is playing in the investment. The digital payments company, which has a valuation of $22 billion, could be a customer of Rapyd as well or just an investor. In an interview with the online publication, Arik Shtilman, CEO of Rapyd said he wasn’t able to say what the relationship with Stripe is. But with Stripe expanding into different services and eyeing more of a global footprint, Rapyd could be tapped for several areas, noted the report.