Due raises $3.3 million to redefine global payments

Due, a next-gen fintech startup headquartered in London, today announced a $3.3 million Seed round. Harnessing the power of blockchain technology, Due’s mission is to redefine international payments, making them faster, more affordable and universally accessible.

The round was led by Semantic and Fabric Ventures, with participation from BlockTower, Speedinvest, Polymorphic Capital and Discovery Ventures, as well as esteemed angel investors including Itamar Lesuisse (CEO at Argent), Pavel Karagjaur (VP of Growth at Bolt) and Emil Urmanshin (Director of Crypto at Revolut). The fresh capital will be used to further develop Due’s technology and to expand its fiat currency connectivity to more markets.

While local payment networks continue to improve with real-time payments becoming more prevalent (e.g. PIX in Brazil, UPI in India, Faster Payments in the UK, and most recently FedNow in the US), what’s lacking is the connectivity across domestic payment rails.

Cross-border payments are expected to reach volumes of $200 trillion by 2027 (according to Ernst & Young), but much of the market is still fragmented. To move funds across borders, traditional banking rails or manual OTC payments are still the only options in many parts of the world. The average cost of international payments is estimated to be 5-6% of the transaction volume, while capital controls restrict companies and individuals in high inflation countries from accessing stable assets or other inflation hedges entirely.

CEO and Co-Founder Robert Sargsian (formerly at Revolut and Bolt), explained, “The current global financial system, especially in emerging markets, is riddled with inefficiencies. Accepting payments from overseas, paying to international vendors, or even moving funds between accounts in different countries is expensive, slow and hard to access. We’re here to challenge and change that.”

Due is building a payment platform that connects domestic payment rails via open and interoperable blockchain protocols. Their web platform enables customers to open borderless accounts and make/receive payments across 50+ markets using their preferred local payment methods. By building on Ethereum and its various scaling solutions (e.g. Arbitrum, Base, OP, with Starknet and zkSync coming soon), Due aims to empower underserved and emerging markets with uninterrupted access to global liquidity, while facilitating transactions at much lower costs and significantly faster settlement times compared to traditional methods.

The platform is powered by Due’s proprietary protocol layer composed of smart contracts and its own relayer infrastructure, which includes various integrations with DEXs like Uniswap and bridges like Circle’s CCTP. All of this is abstracted away from the user, and the end result is a sleek user experience without any of the complexities that often hinder adoption of decentralised applications. “We believe that most future payments will occur on-chain. In fact, spreads for USD/EUR stablecoin pairs on DEXs are already more attractive than USD/EUR fiat pairs on traditional FX platforms today,” stated Robert.

Due stands apart from existing providers by offering fully non-custodial accounts. The clients maintain complete control over their assets on decentralised networks, ensuring direct access without the need for intermediaries. Additionally, the accounts are smart contract wallets with Account Abstraction rather than standard Externally Owned Accounts, allowing for smoother UX: simplified one-click executions, gasless transactions and guardrails for added security.

Due is set to launch this November focused on key corridors connecting the United States, Europe, United Kingdom and Sub-Saharan Africa, with expansion into Latin America and Asia-Pacific scheduled for Q1 ‘24. The company is also actively working on integrating digitised Real World Assets (e.g. tokenised US Treasuries) as a vehicle to provide wider access to treasury and yield-bearing assets.

Co-Founders Robert Sargsian and Alex Popov, CTO, are joined by a global team spanning across London, Munich, New York, Sofia, Lagos and Mexico City. These team members bring experience from renowned companies including Revolut, Uber, Binance and Bolt.

Team Semantic said, “We are thrilled to back Due as they dare to rebuild global payments from first principles, leveraging the latest advances in infrastructure to address the current and future needs of the new generation of users.”

Fabric Ventures Partner Anil Hansjee added, “Due’s approach to programmable on-chain payments is very forward-looking and aligned with the whole crypto ethos. We are excited to support the team in their journey.”

Speedinvest Partner Olga Shekhantsova remarked, “Due is filling a critical gap in the B2B international payments sector, especially for emerging markets.” BlockTower VC Partner Thomas Klocanas also emphasised, “Due stands out for their real-world application of crypto and stablecoins, which covers more than pure crypto-native markets and speculation.”

“We want to be a driving force in bringing more businesses and individuals on-chain,” shared Sargsian, “our vision is a future where money is truly global, permissionless, and inclusive.”