B2B Payment Infrastructure Platform Thunes Secures $72 Million in Funding

Thunes has secured $72 million in a Series C round of funding with support from a range of strategic investors.

The Singapore-based B2B payment infrastructure platform’s latest added investors include Visa, EDBI and Endeavor Catalyst, Thunes said in a Monday (July 17) press release.

“Support from Visa, EDBI and Endeavor is a powerful endorsement of our strategy and capabilities, providing us with additional resources to develop innovative solutions to face industry challenges,” Thunes CEO Peter De Caluwe said in the release. “By leveraging the insights and support of our investors, we will expand our network and offer businesses and consumers an unparalleled cross-border payments experience.”

The funding round comes on the heels of an ongoing global partnership with Visa, and a strategic collaboration between the two to extend Visa Direct’s reach to 1.5 billion digital wallets globally, according to the press release.

Through the agreement, Thunes offers financial institutions, governments, neobanks and money transfer operators a “send-to-wallet” capability, via an application programming interface (API) integration with Visa Direct, for 78 digital wallet providers around the world, the release said.

“Digital wallets play a key role in providing underserved communities with greater economic empowerment and financial inclusion by penetrating previously unreached regions,” Ruben Salazar Genovez, global head of Visa Direct, said in the release. “Visa is proud to take part in Thunes’ Series C investment round and we look forward to continuing our collaboration aimed at providing more customers around the world with quick and simple access to the financial system through digital wallets.”

Visa and Thunes announced in October 2022 that as part of their strategic collaboration, Thunes’ B2B payments platform would connect to Visa Direct, enabling users to allow consumers and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to send funds to markets across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

“Through the combined power of Visa’s scale and Thunes’ payment infrastructure, this collaboration has the potential to help develop a new global era for inclusive and accessible global payments,” De Caluwe said at the time.

The latest investors join a funding round that already includes investment group Marshall Wace, which led the round, Bessemer Venture Partners and Southeast Asian private equity firm 01Fintech.