TransferWise valued at $5bn after confirming $319m secondary share sale

International payments giant TransferWise has today revealed the final details of a secondary share sale that has been on the books for several weeks.   

The fintech has completed a $319m secondary share sale led by new investor D1 Capital Partners and existing shareholder Lone Pine Capital.  

Existing shareholders Baillie Gifford, Fidelity International and LocalGlobe all increased their holdings in the company.  

TransferWise’s share sale was completed by employees and shareholders selling some of their holdings to new and existing investors.  

The sale places the fintech’s valuation at $5bn, a 43 per cent increase on its last valuation from May 2019, when it first earned the label of ‘Europe’s most valuable fintech,’, a title is now held by Revolut,Checkout.com and Klarna which are all valued at $5.5bn.  

Kristo Käärmann, CEO and co-founder, TransferWise said: “There’s lots of talk about unicorns, but in reality, we’re building something even more rare. TransferWise is a fast-growing, profitable business, guided by a mission to build the best way to move money in the world - instant, convenient, transparent and eventually free.”    

“We’ve been funded exclusively by our customers for the last few years and we didn’t need to raise external funding for the company.”  

TransferWise serves 8m customers worldwide and processes £4bn in cross-border payments every month, saving customers more than £1bn in hidden fees every year.  

Teddy Gleser, Partner at D1 Capital Partners, said: “TransferWise has built an exceptional platform within the cross-border payments ecosystem by maintaining an unwavering focus on its customers and constantly innovating.”  

“We have been impressed by the extensibility of TransferWise’s platform, which now includes individuals, businesses and financial institutions among its customers.”  

To date, TransferWise has attracted more than $1bn in primary and secondary share sales.  

Since its launch in 2011, the fintech has dominated the cross-border payment space offering over 2,000 currency routes in 54 different currencies, with nearly 30 per cent of its international transfers being delivered in less than 20 seconds.  

The fintech has also begun to branch out into other fintech areas.  

Through the platform, over 1m debit cards have been issued since 2018 and TransferWise recently gained authorisation from the FCA to begin offering a regulated investment product.  

TransferWise already holds more than £2bn in current deposits, giving it a comfortable head start on rivals Nutmeg, Moneyfarm and Moneybox.