text: With this investment, Rapyd will expand its technology platform that supports any local or cross-border commerce use case requiring local payments, such as bank transfers, e-wallets, and cash for local acceptance and payouts. Rapyd addresses a significant and growing market opportunity as more than half of all transactions worldwide are facilitated via bank transfer, but merchants find it increasingly difficult to digitally enable local payment methods and process cross-border sales that are critical for international expansion.
  “We’re excited to work with our new partners General Catalyst, Stripe, Target Global, IGNIA, and others, who today join our earlier investors including seed and series A lead TaL Capital. This marks a critical inflection point in our evolution as a company and at a time when market demand for our fintech-as-a-service platform approach is accelerating,” said Arik Shtilman, Co-founder and CEO of Rapyd.
  “Rapyd’s product offering helps merchants, banks, telcos and fintech companies expand the scope of the products they offer, increase the number of customers they reach, and improve the overall customer experience,” said Adam Valkin, Partner of General Catalyst. “Rapyd does this by helping drive the ubiquity of payment and payout options beyond debit and credit cards, towards cash, bank transfers, instant payments, e-wallets, and mobile money.”
  “As global commerce continues to grow, the market opportunity for online merchants, the gig economy, online lenders and banks looking to provide access to funds instantly, is constrained due to the challenges of accepting and making local payment methods and cash transactions,” added Shtilman. “Rapyd helps businesses and their customers pay and be paid however they choose by seamlessly integrating any local payment method or cash to run any digital application from a single API.”
  “Rapyd is a rare example of a unique solution allowing merchants and banks that work globally to be able to access hundreds of payment methods with one integration around the world. This ensures access to services for those who are most in need so that they can pay the way they are used to rather than being obliged to use the existing rails of card schemes,” noted Mike Lobanov, General Partner of Target Global. “We see the future in seamless payments with more and more transactions happening inside closed ecosystems through e-wallets. The global economy needs a modernized infrastructure which Rapyd is building.”