Payment Rails, a Montreal, Canada-based API-first payouts platform that enables companies to send fast and low-cost payouts to on-demand workers, suppliers, and employees globally, closed a seed round bringing total investment funding to $1.1M.
The latest investment round includes participation by angel investors, including current and former executives from VISA, Slack, Currencycloud and American Express, along with participation by Scott Thompson, the former President of PayPal, who has also joined Payment Rails as a Board Advisor.
Mr. Thompson’s role will include advising founders Ferhan Patel and Tim Nixon on strategic partnerships, key customer acquisition and international expansion.
Founded in 2015 by Ferhan Patel (co-founder and President) and Tim Nixon (co-founder and CEO), Payment Rails provides an API-first payouts platform that enables businesses to send payments to any individual or company in over 220 countries, in any currency and to any payment method, simplifying global mass payouts for online marketplaces, on-demand and share economy platforms, ad networks, affiliate platforms, app stores, and growing businesses with international payout needs. Through its API, businesses can access Payment Rails’ global banking, international ACH, faster payment systems and real-time networks, on a pay-as-you-go basis with no setup costs.
The infrastructure leverages Blockchain and Ripple to optimize treasury and liquidity management, and utilizes AI and machine learning to optimize payment routing based on speed, cost, partner and FX rates. Payment Rails also incorporates AI and fuzzy logic for AML watchlist screening, and machine learning for fraud detection.
The platform is currently in public beta, with an official launch scheduled for November 2017.
Thompson is currently the CEO of Tuition.io, an employer-funded student loan contribution platform. Prior to Tuition.io, he served as CEO of ShopRunner and CEO of Yahoo. Before that, he served as President of PayPal and, during his tenure, he helped grow revenues from $1 billion to $4.4 billion.
FinSMEs
11/10/2017