Payment Rails Closes Seed Round, Former PayPal President Joins as Advisor

October 10, 2017

Payment Rails has closed its seed funding round today, bringing the total investment for the international payments platform to $1.1 million.

The mass payout API for businesses enables companies to send fast and low-cost payments to on-demand workers, suppliers and employees globally.

The latest investment round saw participation from Scott Thompson, the former president of PayPal, who is joining Payment Rails as a board advisor. Thompson is currently the CEO of Tuition.io, an employer-funded student loan contribution platform, and the former CEO of Yahoo.

“I’m excited to be involved with Payment Rails in their mission to simplify global payouts and contribute to building the next generation of global payment infrastructure for businesses,” he said in a release.

Co-founders Tim Nixon and Ferhan Patel are fintech entrepreneurs who both previously worked for PayPal competitor Payza.

“The leadership team at Payment Rails brings an expert-level knowledge of the payments industry and a profound understanding of the verticals they serve,” said Thompson.

During his tenure at PayPal, Thompson helped scale the company to over 105 million active users, growing revenues from $1 billion to $4.4 billion. Thompson added that he sees Payment Rails as a leader in “next-gen payment solutions” for the global workforce.

The Toronto-based company said Thompson will help guide the co-founders on strategic partnerships, key customer acquisition and the company’s international expansion.

“Scott is an industry giant having led PayPal and making it a dominant force in payments. His experience and expertise will be extremely valuable as we scale our platform globally,” said Patel.

The platform consolidates payout methods, allowing companies to tap into global banking networks to send money in more than 150 currencies to 220 countries for as low as $1 per transaction.

Payment Rails also uses AI and machine learning to optimize payment routing based on speed, cost, partner and foreign exchange rates.

“Our focus on delivering the fastest global payments at fair and transparent prices, coupled with our easy integration, is what businesses have been demanding,” said Nixon. “With the guidance of industry experts like Scott, we’re on the way to achieving this vision.”

Payment Rails is currently in public beta and has an official launch slated for November 2017.