International tuition payments startup peerTransfer has raised $22 million in a funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures.
Existing investors Spark Capital, Devonshire Investors, Accel Partners and QED Investors also took part in the round.
The cross-border peer-to-peer payments platform allows university students to cover tuition costs using their home currency and payment method of choice, including bank transfers, online payments or credit and debit cards. PeerTransfer says that students receive better currency rates through the platform. Universities and colleges also benefit from the ability to automate the reconciling process and eliminate unidentified, missing or short balance international payments.
The capital will be used to fund the company’s international growth, bring new colleges and universities in the US and abroad to peerTransfer’s platform, and expand on peerTransfer’s cross-border payments platform with additional solutions.
This latest round of funding brings the total raised so far to $43.2 million. So far, that the capital seems to have gone to good use. In August, the startup announced that it had surpassed 500 clients and processed more than $1 billion in international education payments. Since then, the company’s customer count has risen to 570 adding around 50 new institutions to its platform per quarter.
In 2015, peerTransfer plans to attract more schools from the UK, Canada and Australia, and also South East Asia, where the company is yet to have a presence. The company also hopes to expand on the core functionality, as well as help international students when setting up bank accounts in the US.
The company has also noted that there is room to expand their platform outside of education.
“The cross-border payments space is highly inefficient and overly expensive, offering a significant opportunity for innovation and value creation,” said Bain Capital Ventures Managing Director Matt Harris, who will be joining the company’s board, in a statement.
“peerTransfer’s breakthrough insight was to design a payment scheme addressing the unique needs and business environment of the recipient, in this case, the educational institution,” he added. “As a result, the risk, cost and complexity of the transaction is dramatically reduced for all parties.”
The company will be testing out new products over the coming months and as it tries to expand on other verticals.
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