Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Kunal Shah, Others Back Global Payments Platfrom Remitr

Cross-border payments platform Remitr has reportedly raised $1 Mn (INR 6.6 Cr) as Seed funding from Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Other investors too participated in this round.

They included Pravin Gandhi, founder, Seedfund; UAE-based Smart Start Fund; Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon of Freecharge; Vishal Gondal, Nasreddine Benaissa, Laurent Nordin, Japan Vyas, Yezdi Lashkari, Nirmal Bhogilal, Singapore Angel Network, Operator VC, Germinators Fund, among others.

The funding will be used for product development and expansion into other countries.

Founded in 2015 by Kanchan Kumar, Sandeep Jhingran, and Sandeep Todi, the company is a digital money transfer platform that enables its users to make payments and remittances globally. It offers end-to-end payments via its payment network that is integrated with third-party payment networks across the world.

Talking about the funding, Kanchan Kumar, CEO and co-founder, Remitr said, “Remitr revolutionises the way people make payments and send money back home using their mobile phones, bypassing prevalent legacy platforms which are both cumbersome and costly. We are already live in UAE and on course to launch in Canada by the end of this year.”

The startups has plans for expanding operations in countries including the US, UK, Europe, and Australia, as per an official statement.

Commenting on the funding, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO, Paytm said, “Seamless cross-border payments infrastructure can accelerate global commerce and development. The founding team at Remitr are solving a real world problem and has the passion, belief, and conviction to accelerate this revolution. I am confident they will truly disrupt this space.”

According to an official statement, Remitr is part of the In5 Innovation Hub at UAE, the incubation arm of Dubai Internet City and is also associated with DMZ in Toronto, the incubation arm of Ryerson University.

Over the past few years, the payments landscape in India has shown some major shifts with digital payments witnessing an exponential growth. The digital payments industry in India is projected to reach $500 Bn by 2020, as a per a recent report by Google and Boston Consulting Group.

In August 2016, mobile payments and ecommerce platform Paytm raised $60 Mn from Taiwan-based MediaTek’s investment fund, Mountain Capital. In May 2016, Gurgaon-based mobile wallet company, MobiKwik raised an undisclosed amount of funding led by Japan’s GMO Payment Gateway and MediaTek. In August 2016, South Africa-based Net1 UEPS Technologies Inc. invested $40 Mn for a subscription agreement with MobiKwik in order to mark its foray in India.

Last week, digital payment gateway Razorpay launched Unified Payment Interface (UPI). It claims to be India’s first payment gateway to do so. Prior to that, Gurugram-based online payment service provider PayU acquired its rival online payment gateway CitrusPay.