Boston based peerTransfer, the pioneer in low-cost online international money transfer and global payments, announced today their first round of funding. The round was led by Spark Capital and also included investments from West coast crazy angel Dave McClure, as well as John Landry, Jim Hornthal, Ken Morse, Roy Rodenstein, Project 11 Ventures and a few other Spanish angels.
The amount invested is said to be $1.1M all together and includes 10 different investment parties, including a well known VC firm. For a relatively small Series A round, they sure packed in the investors.
PeerTransfer, which was founded at MIT and has offices in both Boston and Spain, enables individuals and businesses to transfer money between international bank accounts more conveniently and up to five times lower cost, compared to traditional banking and wire services.
“The idea of peerTransfer was born when I had to transfer money from London to Boston for my MBA program at MIT Sloan a few years ago,” said Iker Marcaide, founder and CEO, peerTransfer. “After incurring a significant amount in transfer fees and bad foreign exchange rates, I thought there has to be an easier and cheaper way to transfer money internationally.”
PeerTransfer is regulated as a financial institution and currently serves by invitation customers in the United States, United Kingdon and Canada sending more to more than 35 countries. The company’s advisory board includes first Data, Western Union, and PayPal former senior managers.
“There has long been a need for an efficient, low-cost way to transfer funds internationally, yet until now the need has gone unmet and banking customers have been forced to put up with expensive, conventional methods,” said Alex Finkelstein, General Partner at Spark Capital. “peerTransfer is challenging this convention with an approach and technology that has enormous market potential. Iker and his team have made huge strides in a short amount of time and the company is gaining strong early customer traction as individuals and businesses look for an alternative to traditional services.”
