iBanFirst, a French startup that provides foreign exchange (FX) services, announced on Thursday that it has secured €15 million ($17 million) in funding. This comes from a long-standing investor as well as venture capital funds Serena, which led the funding round, and Breega.
The injection of cash comes two years after the company first raised €10 million in funds from Xaviel Niel. With the most recent funding, iBanFirst plans to invest in research and development, launch new services and increase its presence globally.
What is iBanFirst?
So what does iBanFirst do? Well, the firm aims to solve a very specific problem for companies - making currency conversion as easy as possible. This is especially useful for firms that have suppliers across the world and need to pay invoices in different currencies.
iBanFirst allows its customers to send money from their corporate account to their iBanFirst account. Here, they can convert and hold funds in 28 currencies. The company shows its customers the interbank exchange rate and how many fees they’ll incur, with the company stating its customers save up to 70 percent in Forex costs.
Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier
Source: LinkedIn
Commenting on the cash injection, Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier, the Founder of iBanFirst said: "with these new funds raised, the favourable context under PSD2, current Market Depth and cumulative data from 2500 clients and 20,000 suppliers worldwide, our potential for expansion is enormous."
“Our ambition is to constantly develop our platform with new services. We started in 2018 with our online hedging offer, guaranteeing a currency exchange rate, personalised IBANs, aggregation of external accounts, payment tracking with Swift GPI, etc… In the near future, we will provide access to new currencies, debt financing, cash investments and even more sophisticated forward exchange solutions."
The company was established in 2013, originally as FX4BIZ, before changing its name in 2016. The company caters to clients who transfer a minimum of €100,000 per year. At present, it has 100 employees and more than 2,000 clients.
