Wise (previously TransferWise), a London-based fintech startup, announced on Thursday that it has received a £300M (approximately €345M) syndicated debt facility led by Silicon Valley Bank UK with participation from six other banks.
The fintech company says it will use the funds to accelerate its growth.
Matt Briers, Chief Financial Officer at Wise, says, “Our mission is to create money without borders – instant, convenient, transparent, and eventually free. The new facility led by Silicon Valley Bank UK will offer us flexible and efficient access to working capital. This means we can continue bringing our service to as many as possible and keep investing in making our payments faster, cheaper, and more efficient for our millions of customers worldwide.”
Silicon Valley Bank UK: What you need to know
Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited provides commercial banking services, expertise, and insights to technology, life science and healthcare, private equity, and venture capital industries across the UK & EMEA.
Thomas Easterby, Managing Director of Corporate Finance at Silicon Valley Bank UK, says, “We are delighted to build on our relationship with Wise by leading and arranging this significant facility to enable the company’s next growth phase. This financing continues our long-term relationship with Wise following last year’s pre-IPO syndicated facility.”
Rosh Wijayarathna, Head of Corporate Finance, Silicon Valley Bank UK, says, “Supporting innovation, innovators, and their investors are in our DNA, and SVB’s Corporate Finance team is thrilled to arrange this facility for Wise. We are seeing the UK create global market leaders and the UK ecosystem maturing as a world-leading innovation hub.”
Wise: What you need to know
Wise was launched in 2011 by Kristo Kaarmann and Taavet Hinrikus to stop the global practice of banks and brokers charging exorbitant hidden fees, resulting in expensive, slow international payments.
The platform provides customers a lower-cost alternative to traditional means of moving money internationally.
The company’s product suite includes:
- Borderless account and debit card.
- Money transfer service.
- Application Programming Interface (API) for larger enterprises and bank partnerships.
It launched new products across the US, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East in 2019 and supports 2500 currency routes and 54 currencies on the whole.
With over 13M people and businesses using Wise, the UK fintech says it processes over £8B in cross-border transactions every month, saving customers over £1B a year.
