Ahead of the widespread adoption of crypto payments by businesses worldwide, London-headquartered Orbital group announces its first institutional capital raise, having been profitable since launching in 2017
Orbital, the London, Tallinn and Gibraltar-based traditional finance and crypto payments platform for global enterprises, has raised £5M ($6.4M) in an oversubscribed growth round led by Golden Record Ventures, at an attractive valuation in which the founders are maintaining a large majority.
Participants in the round include New Form Capital, GSRV, Psalion and Luminous Futures. The funding marks Orbital’s first institutional capital raise, having been bootstrapped and profitable since being founded in London in 2017.
Orbital provides a range of traditional payment and global FX solutions, but where it deviates from the norm is that it also offers licensed crypto payment services, especially focusing on the business use cases for stablecoins in cross border payments.
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Facilitating Fiat and Blockchain Payments
Orbital combines fiat and crypto business accounts to enable traditional, global enterprises, particularly those with exposure to emerging markets, to integrate stablecoins, as well as other major cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies, into existing payment flows. Its APIs further act as an embedded finance solution for stablecoin payments.
For example, companies can accept cryptocurrency payments from customers, off-ramp into traditional currencies like USD, GBP and EUR, and settle into IBAN accounts in minutes. Customers can instantly access new markets, without the need for a physical presence or domestic bank accounts, and if they so choose there’s no need to handle cryptocurrencies themselves.
Orbital is licensed by the Financial Conduct Authority as an authorised payment institution in the UK, and as a virtual currency service provider in Estonia, with other licences to be announced in the coming months.
Orbital’s first institutional capital raise comes ahead of it raising a Series A round, and, despite the current crypto bear market, off the back of its seven-digit monthly revenue having grown over 40% in the last 6 months. It has over 80 clients processing $250M of value every month. Orbital’s headcount is 95 globally, with three offices across London, Estonia, Gibraltar.
The funding round will enable Orbital to continue its rapid growth, secure additional licences in new jurisdictions, and further develop its product.
Corporate Crypto Circumspection
Deloitte’s Global Blockchain Survey found that 80% of senior executives believe that digital assets will be very/somewhat important to their respective industries in the next two years, while data from The Block and Bitquery shows that there were $10 trillion dollars worth of on-chain payments in stablecoins over the last 12 months alone.
However, despite the understanding that digital assets are necessary, adoption has been slow amongst corporates because of a lack of internal knowledge and a mistrust of the industry.
Among digital assets, payments in stablecoin are becoming rapidly more normalised for businesses operating globally because they offer significant benefits for cross border low value C2B and high value B2B payments, particularly when an emerging market is involved. However, although there is currently a plethora of tools available for this, many larger businesses and corporates have struggled to find an overarching solution that doesn’t upset existing banking relationships.
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A Single Platform For Multi-Asset Payments
Orbital’s industry-first product bridges the gap between traditional finance and digital asset treasury solutions, offering a regulated, secure and frictionless experience for multinational corporates. It acts as a single point of access to a range of tools needed to run a treasury operation, including multi-currency accounts, foreign exchange, global payments and digital asset custody. Orbital also offers its crypto payment rails via API allowing online merchants the ability to embed crypto payment into their own product or service.
Luke Wingfield-Digby, co-founder and Head of Corporate Development of Orbital, comments: “We believe all modern, global companies will require access to both blockchain and fiat payment rails, from one single platform, to effectively manage their business in the future. Orbital has been built by veterans who deeply understand the needs of large enterprises, which until now have been massively underserved. Our combined expertise in both traditional finance and crypto means that we are uniquely positioned to serve their demands. Bootstrapped and profitable since 2017, we’ve both grown rapidly and raised financing in a very difficult crypto bear market. Now we’re ready to scale even further and push our platform towards the bleeding edge of fintech.”
Jad Benabdelkhalek, General Partner at Golden Record Ventures, adds: “The Orbital team has developed a best-in-class, licensed technology platform that caters specifically to large corporates and enterprises. Up until now these have been underserved, meaning there is a distinct lack of competition, and a huge opportunity for Orbital to fill that gap. The global business community is starting to understand the value and importance of stablecoins and digital assets, and we are delighted to back Orbital which is at the forefront of enabling this change.”
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