Railsr Achieves Series C Milestone, Raising $46m

Railsr, the world leading embedded finance platform, has today announced that it has closed its Series C round, raising $46m.

The Series C fundraise constituted $26m of equity and $20m of debt. The equity portion was led by Anthos Capital, who led the Railsr Series B in July 2021, and includes other existing investors spanning Europe, North America and Asia: Ventura, Outrun Ventures, CreditEase and Moneta. The debt portion of the round was with Mars Capital, a new investor in the company.

Railsr CEO and co-founder Nigel Verdon said: “I am absolutely delighted that less than four months after Railsbank evolved to become Railsr, we have achieved another milestone and closed our Series C, a significant step on our route to profitability.”

“We set out to challenge old finance and this is what we will continue to do. Our strategy and success to date has come from the way we prioritise customers, invest in technology, empower teams and execute relentlessly to continue our journey. Whilst we must take into account the challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop we operate against today, it remains a good time to be a fintech business growing new embedded finance micro-economies.”

“The market is accelerating towards embedded finance. We are seeing a growing demand for embedded finance experiences, particularly amongst younger age groups. 64% of 18-24 year old GB adults would be likely to access financial or banking services from Amazon, for example.**”

Meirav Harnoy, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Moneta VC, said: “It has been a pleasure to see Railsr go from strength-to-strength as a challenger to old finance and a creator of the embedded finance economy. Railsr’s customers, technology and people have impressed me since I led the Series A investment round. I’m excited to see what comes next.”

Railsr has built a portfolio of more than 300 customers who are disrupting the financial and retail industries. Recent customer wins include HelloCash, Sodexo and Payine.

Mike Galvin, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Railsr partner Toqio said: “Toqio has built a strong collaborative partnership with Railsr delivering financial services to our joint customers at scale and pace. The Railsr partnership has allowed Toqio to deliver cost effective financial services solutions to the market and has been one of the key enablers of our growth. We look forward to our continued collaboration.”

Railsr continues to innovate. In June Rewards as a Service (RaaS) was launched, in July direct connectivity to SEPA Instant in Europe was implemented, in August support for Confirmation of Payee in the UK went live and Railsr will formally launch Insights as a Service (IaaS) later this month. This additional functionality enhances our existing simple to use, turnkey platform which provides banking, wallets, cards and credit products.

In May, Will Carling OBE was appointed as an advisor. In August, Railsr appointed Rick Haythornthwaite as its inaugural Chairman of the board.

On the future of embedded finance, management consulting firm Bain & Company commented in a major report published on 12 September, 2022: “Financial services embedded into e-commerce and other software platforms accounted for $2.6 trillion, or nearly 5%, of total US financial transactions in 2021, and by 2026 will exceed $7 trillion, our research finds.”

It also concluded: “Demand will grow because the “better together” proposition promises to improve customer experiences and financial access, along with providing cost reductions and risk benefits to companies.”