#Taptap send crunchbase plus#

With this additional funding, we’ve been able to expand our impact by bringing our product to even more markets, and at even greater scale. And as it turned out, we did not see the predicted decline in fact, COVID has only accelerated the shift to digital payments with Taptap growing about 5X over the remainder of 2020. They were joined by a mix of new and old investors with deep fintech and emerging market backgrounds.

We’re proud to be part of this solution, and are grateful that in the very early days COVID, when much of the world was freezing in uncertainty and the World Bank was predicting a steep decline in remittance volume, Canaan Partners (read their blog) and Reid Hoffman took a chance by leading our latest round of $13.4M. And as the World Bank put it, “Digital financial inclusion was a development priority before the COVID-19 emergency now, it is indispensable for both short-term relief and as a central element of broad-based, sustainable recovery efforts.” We raised capital to help serve even more immigrant communities Digital payments have gone from a nice-to-have to a must-have. These issues have only been made more complicated by lockdowns and social distancing mandates in the developed world, whereby old means of transfer (i.e., going to the cornershop) are no longer viable. Nowhere has this been more true than the emerging markets, which are expected to experience the first increase in poverty in over 20 years 3. The last year has been a difficult one, and especially painful for those that lost loved ones or saw their lives turned upside down. Especially now - digital financial inclusion has been essential in a world of lock downs and COVID We’re proud to be the only remittance company (of which we’re aware) that has publicly committed to hitting that goal. The cost of global remittances is simply that important to the reduction in inequality. So it should come as no surprise that the United Nations included lowering the price of remittances to 3% as a top-level indicator to “reduce inequality” among their Sustainable Development Goals. And they’re growing quickly: more than 7x since 2000 2.

#Taptap send crunchbase plus#

Why it matters - remittances are the primary source of capital for low income countriesĬross-border payments are not only a large market - $540B through formal channels alone, with the informal sector estimated to be almost as large - but are also the central source of capital for low and middle income countries: remittance inflows exceeded foreign direct investment plus official development assistance in 2020. Building that infrastructure, and translating it into a better experience for customers, was a challenge we wanted solved- especially now, in an era of anti-immigrant backlash.

This may sound surprisingly obvious, commonplace and even easy, but in the markets we’re working it requires significant behind-the-scenes financial and technical infrastructure to make it possible, along with an expansive network of international partners. More specifically, it has allowed us to offer a simple, rapid, no-fee 1, mobile-to-mobile remittance service focused on those from underserved markets. The mobile money revolution, by which more than a billion people have gone from no financial access to a digital bank in their pockets, has made this possible. GiveDirectly first did this for philanthropic capital Segovia for businesses, and now, Taptap Send for individuals. Simply put, Taptap Send is the next chapter in a journey with co-founder Paul Niehaus to make it as cheap, fast and convenient to transfer money into the emerging markets as possible.