Payments platform eyes international expansion, raises capital to enhance digital financial solutions for enterprises
Dwolla, a modern payments platform, announces a $21 million venture round led by Foundry Group to drive innovation for today’s B2B payments. Additional investors include Park West Asset Management LLC, Union Square Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, Firebrand Ventures and Next Level Ventures. and Jeremy Andrus, the CEO of Traeger, also joined the round as an individual investor.
The transaction value for global digital payments was $5.4 trillion in 2020 and is projected to reach $11.29 trillion by 2026. As digital payments overtake analog, Dwolla is uniquely positioned to continue leading the industry with its flexible, reliable and easy-to-use payments platform. This investment will catalyze Dwolla’s growth initiatives with international payments, expansive partner relationships through a partner API and further accelerate the company’s aggressive product roadmap focused on a world-class, real-time payments experience.
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“We continue to be excited at the speed of innovation and demands from the marketplace, ” said Dwolla CEO Brady Harris. “We continue to see significant client and payment volume growth due in part to our new products like Real-Time Payments, Push-to-Debit and our low-code solutions. This funding will allow us to fully capitalize on the momentum we’re experiencing, as we continue to scale our tech stack with innovative solutions and invest in go-to-market capabilities with international expansion and technical integrations with exciting fintech partners.”
Dwolla has seen an 80% increase in transaction volume since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, trending to exceed $30 billion in 2021. These expanded volumes come with a growing customer base that onboarded nearly 3 million end users through the first half of 2021 to the Dwolla Platform, emphasizing the need for a digital payment solution that can meet the operational needs of modern enterprises and their customers.
“It’s invigorating to be a part of such a long-standing industry and see companies like Dwolla continuing to find new ways to innovate it,” said Andrus. “Dwolla is disrupting an industry whose benchmark of checkbooks and hard cash as the primary sources of payment is outdated and inefficient. The Dwolla team’s ability to develop new solutions, leverage new tools and take a modern approach to a traditional process is tenfold. When investing in companies, those are all important aspects I look for. Dwolla exceeds the expectations of a company that can scale their operations to meet the evolving needs of a modern business.”
To date, Dwolla has raised more than $70 million in capital from investors such as Andreesen Horowitz, High Alpha, Thrive Capital, Ludlow Ventures, amongst others. Assisting in financial technology across a range of industries from real estate to education and more, brands including GOAT, Ibotta, and Rally have benefited from Dwolla’s robust payments platform.
