Navro Eyes New Digital Wallet Integrations After Raising $41 Million
British payments FinTech Navro is aiming to expand after raising $41 million.
The company says its Series B round, announced Tuesday (April 29), will allow it to expand into more U.S. states, as well as Hong Kong, India and Dubai.
And in the months ahead, Navro plans to integrate its payments curation platform with more than 30 digital wallets, dozens of new real-time payment options and additional ACH corridors, the company said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.
“Our vision is empowering businesses to transact like locals wherever they are. The Navro platform has been built from scratch to handle both the operational intensity and regulatory complexity surrounding large volumes of incoming and outgoing international transactions,” said Navro CEO Aran Brown.
“The next round of expansion goes into and beyond the world’s financial hubs. We’re seeing increasing demand for fast, reliable cost-effective payouts on local rails in compliance-driven sectors such as global workforce and supplier payments, and pensions.”
According to the release, the Navro platform supports cross-border collections, currency conversion and global payouts while reducing working capital requirements by up to 70%.
The company notes its funding round goes against a trend of declining investment in U.K. FinTechs, with funding slipping 27% between 2023 and 2024.
As covered here last month, FinTechs worldwide attracted $21.5 billion in venture capital (VC) investment during 2024, the lowest level of funding in eight years. It was a trend driven by a drop in FinTech valuation and slowing growth rates, with many VC investors turning their attention to companies in the generative artificial intelligence (AI) space.
The round is also happening as consumers around the world are showing a growing preference for digital wallets when sending and receiving money across borders.
This preference was especially pronounced among consumers, according to recent PYMNTS Intelligence research, with 42% naming digital wallets as their top choice, surpassing traditional methods such as bank account transfers and money transfer services.
The chief drivers behind this adoption included the perceived speed and increasing trust connected to digital wallets.
“However, the burgeoning popularity of digital wallets in cross-border payments presents opportunities and challenges for banks,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this week, citing research from the report “Global Money Movement: How Digital Wallets Are Transforming Cross-Border Payments,” a collaboration with TerraPay.
“While consumers and businesses embrace the convenience offered by digital wallets, the report found interoperability issues that hinder seamless transactions across different platforms and countries.”
And although most financial institutions expect an increase in cross-border digital wallet use, their enablement lags behind traditional payment methods.
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