Image: © Oleg/Stock.adobe.com
The newly rebranded Zepz, which is led by former Paddy Power boss Breon Corcoran, may be heading for an IPO as soon as next year.
Digital money transfer company Zepz, formerly called WorldRemit Group, has raised $292m in a Series E funding round announced today (23 August), valuing the company at $5bn.
Existing investors Leapfrog, TCV and Accel were joined by new investors Farallon Capital, among others.
The fresh financing comes ahead of a potential initial public offering that could be as soon as 2022, according to a recent Bloomberg report.
Zepz is a digital cross-border payments platform with more than 11m users across its two brands, WorldRemit and Sendwave.
The holding company is being rebranded to Zepz after it expanded beyond its core WorldRemit business and acquired Africa-focused remittance app Sendwave in August of last year.
“Today’s announced raise is another important step in the execution of our strategy,” said Zepz CEO Breon Corcoran, the Irish businessman who is the former chief executive of Paddy Power Betfair.
“Following the acquisition of Sendwave we have made significant progress with the integration of the different businesses and are retaining both the Sendwave and WorldRemit brands. In that context we are proud to announce the rebranding of our holding company to Zepz.”
WorldRemit was founded in 2010 by Ismail Ahmed as a digital-only response to traditional cross-border payments services with high transaction fees. The acquisition of Sendwave for $500m last year valued the combined group at $1.5bn, Bloomberg reported at the time.
The company said that it reaches more than 5,000 money transfer corridors, including in emerging markets, and increases geographical connectivity to underserved areas such as parts of Africa and Asia.
It said the new funding will be used to invest in its existing technology and expand its platform to new markets with growth opportunities.
“The additional funds raised enable us to accelerate investment to prosecute our very sizeable growth opportunity whilst further strengthening our high-quality investor base and our mission to provide fair, fast, flexible payments for our customers,” Corcoran added.
London-headquartered Zepz has regional offices worldwide and employs more than 1,500 people. Last year, the company reported 4.5m monthly transactions on its platform, culminating in a $10bn transfer volume and $338m in revenue.
