GGV Capital – the U.S-China firm that has backed notable companies like Xiaomi, Airbnb and Square – led a US$10 million investment in Singapore-based startup Thunes (previously known as TransferTo).
The startup plans to use the new funding to further develop its service and expand into new markets like Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This expansion plan will also involve opening new offices in San Francisco, Dubai and Paris in addition to its current Singapore, London and Miami offices.
Thunes, a slang for money in French and is pronounced ‘tunes,’ is a cross-border payments startup that offers four payment solutions: P2P (peer to peer) remittance processing, corporate mass payouts, B2B (business to business) payments, and digital payment services. The startup makes money via each transaction by charging a fee, and in the case of cross border, a small markup is carried out on exchange rates using mid-market rates for reference.
Thunes claims to have a global network of more than 80 countries and over 9,000 payout partners. On average, it completes over 300,000 transactions daily and processes over $3 billion per annum.
The startup plans to continue building strategic partnerships to offer its payment solutions to more customers. Thunes had secured a few notable partnerships including global payment giants like PayPal, Western Union, and M-PESA. It also recently partnered with Grab to send real-time mass salary payouts to their drivers.
