Written by Alex Bredeen
Volt raises a $23.5 million Series A, the largest Series A on record for the open banking industry
I mean just when you thought the news coming out of Fuel couldn’t get any better, Volt have only gone and blown their Series A round out the water with the largest Series A on recordfor the open banking industry. Yes, you heard that right... Volt has announced today that it has raised an INCREDIBLE $23.5 million Series A to fund expansion into new territories and build out its global instant payments footprint. This is the LARGEST Series A on record for the Open Banking industry. Can we just take a moment to let that settle in…
Fuel Ventures were the first cheque and backers of Volt 16 months ago. This $23.5 million Series A round means Volt has achieved a 10x uplift in valuation for our investors in just 16 months, which is pretty astronomical at the seed stage...
The $23.5 million Series A round was led by EQT Ventures one of the largest European Venture Capital firms. EQT Ventures have invested in the likes of Handshake, Curb Food, Peakon, Small Giant Games, amongst countless others and is fuelled by some of Europe’s most experienced company builders and scalers. The round also had participation from ourselves as well as existing investors Augmentum Fintech PLC, alongside several angel investors with extensive payments industry experience and influence. These include: Robert Kraal as Chairman (co-founder of Adyen) and Gabriel de Montessus as Non-Executive Director (Group President at FIS Worldpay).
So what is Volt and why are they making so much noise in the Open Payments Industry?
Volt is a leading open payments gateway; a technology developer and payments orchestrator to scale merchant organisations and payment service providers. The Company aspires to a constantly developing and changing product suite at the leading edge of financial market regulatory and market developments.
Founded in 2019, Volt is building the infrastructure for global instant payments. Today, its open payments gateway allows merchants and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) to process transactions securely between accounts held at more than 5,000 banks in the UK and EU. Volt’s unique aggregation model provides unrivalled open payments reach and maximises the speed, security and resilience of transactions.
Across the globe, Merchants and PSPs are prioritising instant payments in their expansive ecosystems. With 58 countries around the world rolling out their new instant payment scheme as companies across the globe embrace the digitalisation of working.
Volt’s platform translates and operationalises the real-time payments infrastructure, creating a highly flexible and scalable solution, and delivering a unified experience for both Merchants and Payment Service Providers.
What do Volt and EQT have to say about the $23.5m Series A round?
Tom Greenwood, CEO of Volt, comments: “Instant payments are set to dominate the global payments landscape and will become the new normal. It’s an exciting time to be in payments, and we are delighted to have secured such a significant funding round, and the backing of an influential group of investors. We look forward to working with our new partners at EQT Ventures as we build out our global vision.”
Tom Mendoza, Partner at EQT Ventures, added: “The pandemic has created an inflection point in the payments sector; faced with unprecedented online demand, merchants and PSPs are re-assessing the technical infrastructure that underpins their business. Volt’s team of payments experts are creating meaningful change and building a new category in instant payments, forging the path by bringing new real-time networks to a single switch. We are delighted to be working with Tom and the team.”