Left to right: Remitly co-founders Josh Hug, Matt Oppenheimer and Shivash Gulati. (Remitly photo)
Seattle-based money transfer company Remitly announced key financial results in its Form S-1 registration statement Monday afternoon, a major milestone on the road to becoming a publicly traded company.
Remitly had sales of $ 257 million and a net loss of $ 32.5 million in 2020, doubling annual sales and nearly halving the loss.
The trends have continued since then, with the company posting sales of $ 202 million and a net loss of $ 9.2 million for the first six months of this year.
Remitly first announced its IPO plans in June and is going public the old-fashioned way offering an IPO of its shares. Many other companies went public in the past year through mergers with purpose-built companies or SPACs.
Remitly’s last valuation was $ 1.5 billion in July when it launched a $ 85 million investment round. It’s one of a handful of tech startups from the Seattle area valued at more than $ 1 billion. Total private funding to date is nearly $ 400 million.
Founded in 2011, Remitly’s mobile technology enables people to send and receive money across borders, including immigrants in the US and UK who support families at home in countries like the Philippines, India, El Salvador and others. The service eliminates forms, codes and agents normally associated with the international money transfer process.
Remitly generates income from transaction fees based on the currencies used, financing methods and the amount of customer capital. The company also makes money on currency spreads or the Difference between an exchange rate offered to customers and the exchange rate for the company’s foreign currency purchases.
Remitly ranks 10th in the top 10 most downloaded peer-to-peer payment apps worldwide, according to eMarketer. The company reported “broadcast volume” of approximately $ 16.1 billion for the twelve months ended June 30.
Last year, Remitly expanded beyond wire transfers and introduced a banking service called Passbook, which was designed for immigrants.
Remitly competes with a number of other cross-border money transfer companies, including Wise (formerly TransferWise), valued at $ 11 billion via a direct listing following its IPO in July, and Zepz (formerly WorldRemit), which was launched in a series of US $ 292 million. Dollar raised e-finance last week.
Investor interest in these companies reflects the growth opportunities for digital remittances. Remitly said the global money transfer market was valued at $ 1.5 trillion in 2020. Its business and the digital financial services industry as a whole have accelerated as a result of the pandemic.
Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer helped develop the idea for Remitly while working for Barclays Bank in Kenya. He founded the company in 2011 with Josh Hug and Shivaas Gulati; the original name for the startup was Beamit Mobile.
The company’s largest shareholder is PayU von Prosus with 23.9%, followed by Stripes (12.1%) and Threshold Ventures (9.4%). Seattle-based Trilogy Equity Partners has a 6.2% stake. Oppenheimer holds 4.8% of the shares, Hug 3.1%.
Remitly, number 3 on GeekWire 200’s list of top tech startups in the Pacific Northwest, employs around 1,600 people at its Seattle headquarters and six other offices in Spokane, Washington, London, Cork, Krakow, Manila and Managua.
It is traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker “RELY”.
The company signed a deal with Los Angeles Football Club earlier this month to become the exclusive global money transfer partner of the MLS team.
Other Washington state companies going public this year include Eliem Therapeutics; Absci; Icosavax; Sana Biotechnologie, Impel Neuropharma; and Paymentus. Nautilus Biotechnology and Rover went public through SPAC deals.
GeekWire reporter Todd Bishop contributed to this story.