Rapyd Launched Venture Arm for Investing in Fintech Startups

On Thursday, Israeli-founded Rapyd, which is a global fintech-as-a-service provider, announced the launch of its venture arm named Rapyd ventures. Its goal will be to invest in early startups and growth-stage businesses that are working on bringing about the next stage of financial services innovation. For the most part, Rapyd will be working with startups that have completed their seed round as well as their Series B funding round and wish to take advantage of the existing market traction. Not only will Rapyd Ventures provide them with capital, but also give them access to its extensive network of partners and fintech-as-a-service capabilities. 

According to a statement by the company, they will offer strategic advice to these startups and provide them with opportunities to expand more quickly, move faster and boost their growth. Rapyd’s Vice President of Asia Pacific, Joel Yarbrough will lead Rapyd Ventures and will be interested in backing two types of endeavors. The first comprises capability providers who deliver core infrastructures, such as risk and identity management, embedded financial services, and seamless and faster movement of money. The second refers to end-to-end user platforms delivering innovative financial services to businesses and consumers.

A fractional shares trading platform known as Gotrade is the first investment made by Rapyd Ventures. It was founded in 2019 and provides people in more than 150 countries the chance to become investors. The restrictive commission fees, geographical barriers, and the minimum deposit sizes are eliminated by Gotrade to enable anyone to purchase and sell fractional US shares. The chief executive and co-founder at Rapyd, Arik Shtilman said the payments industry has seen innovation, but this is not evenly distributed. Therefore, they have taken on the responsibility to support companies that are developing the infrastructure for offering financial services for the next generation.

He added that his company was proud to invest in businesses like Gotrade, which provide people across the world the chance to become investors and offer excellent customer experiences, along with operational excellence and smart platform capabilities. He added that they were working with entrepreneurs all over the world for creating the infrastructure needed for offering next-generation financial services and bring new fintech products to the market that provide opportunities to individuals as well as small and large businesses for transacting quickly and safely. He said that ‘FinTech’ will be incorporated into all types of services and they want to help make it happen by supporting innovators as well as a set of new open banking, payment identity, and embedded financial capabilities. 

Shtilman, along with Omer Priel and Arkady Karpman, founded Rapyd in 2015 and developed a platform that uses an easy-to-use API for simplifying the complexity of providing local payment solutions and embedding fintech services into any app. Businesses don’t need to develop their own infrastructure to send and accept payments, as they can use the Rapyd Global Payments Network. This offers support for a myriad of local payment solutions, including bank transfers, cash, e-wallets, and bank transfers.