Marquee companies Mastercard, Barclays, Ripple, and others have taken part in a funding round of $1.7M for remittance company SendFriend. The latter enables users to send money to the Philippines.
SendFriend Closes $1.7M Investment
According to an official press release published February 11th, remittance firm SendFriend has closed a $1.7 million investment round. Contributors included the Mastercard Foundation, Barclays, MIT Media Lab, Ripple, Techstars, 2020 Ventures, Mahindra Finance, and 8 Decimal Capital.
The money will enable SendFriend to further develop its remittance service which enables users to send money to the Philippines with the help of blockchain-based technology.
The release also notes that SendFriend takes advantage of Ripple’s xRapid technology in order to enable money transfers. The system uses XRP as a liquidity vehicle to carry out the cross-border payments.
This enables SendFriend to avoid the existing banking system and to quickly convert USD to XRP and then to PHP.
Speaking on the matter, David Lighton, CEO at SendFriend, said:
We are humbled by the support of our investors, who share in our vision to reduce the costs and improve the experience for the millions of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who send money home to support their families. […] This investment will allow us to build out our team, focus on community engagement, and marketing efforts.
SendFriend has also been accepted in the Barclays Accelerator Program.
Last month, Ripple announced that SendFriend has become one of the 13 latest financial institutions who have signed up to use its payment network – the RippleNet.
What do you think of the latest funding round of $1.7M for SendFriend? Share your thoughts down below!
