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Walapay has raised USD $4.6 million in seed funding in a round led by Generative Ventures.
Commerce Ventures, Polygon, Verda Ventures, NGC Ventures, FGV Capital, AAF, Jsquare, Knollwood and Big Brain Holdings also participated.
Founded by brothers Tom and Dimitri Borgers, Walapay offers a single application programming interface for account issuance, collections, foreign exchange and payouts. It targets fintechs, payment service providers and financial institutions that need to move money across currencies and markets.
Walapay says it already processes USD $2.5 billion in annualised total payment volume across more than 180 countries and supports more than 60 currencies. Customers include Kast, Nuvei and Bastion.
The new capital will be used for licensing, banking partnerships and hiring as Walapay expands the direct relationships and regulatory coverage behind its network.
Last-mile focus
Walapay is focused on a common cross-border payments problem: the final stage of moving money into a local account in a local currency through a local bank. Many providers rely on intermediary institutions, third-party licences and aggregator arrangements to complete that process.
The company argues that this chain can involve four or five separate banks and payment service providers before settlement, adding fees, delays and operational risk, particularly for businesses entering emerging markets.
Its approach is to connect directly to local payment rails in parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia while also building licensing and banking relationships in those markets. Walapay says this gives clients a single platform rather than a series of outsourced connections.
"Payments infrastructure breaks down at the last mile, where money has to land in a local account, in a local currency, through a local bank. Walapay is a rare team building that full stack themselves, owning the licensing and banking relationships instead of renting them, and using whichever rails move money fastest and cheapest. We're thrilled to back Tom, Dimitri, and the team as they bring more of global payment volume onto rails built for how money can move on modern rails," said Lex Sokolin, Managing Partner at Generative Ventures.
Commerce Ventures pointed to the same structural issue in backing the company.
"We're always looking for teams tackling structural gaps in underserved parts of financial services, and cross-border payments is exactly that; still slow, expensive, and stitched together with rented licenses in most emerging markets," said Vivek Krishnamurthy, Partner at Commerce Ventures. "Walapay is one of the rare platforms we've seen with real local rail coverage across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and we've watched their customers get measurable speed and cost improvements from putting volume through it."
Investor backing
Verda Ventures said Walapay's model addresses the technical and compliance fragmentation that often complicates international expansion.
"Walapay is the kind of company we started Verda to fund: infrastructure solving a real cross-border payments problem for businesses. By owning more of the stack, they can bring markets together without the fragmented technology and compliance complexity that has historically made global expansion difficult," said Alex Witt, Founding General Partner at Verda Ventures.
FGV Capital, another investor in the round, said it had worked with the founding team for several years.
"We've worked closely with Tom, Dimitri, and the Walapay team for several years and have been consistently impressed by both the speed and quality of their execution," said Marcos Fernandez, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at FGV Capital. "Cross-border payments are incredibly complex, and Walapay has done the hard work of building the banking relationships, licensing, compliance infrastructure, and partner network needed to make payments work at scale. We're proud to be investors and partners in the company and excited to support the team as they expand into new markets."
Product scope
Walapay says its platform supports settlement into multicurrency accounts, repatriation of funds to emerging markets and currency conversion. It also works with banking and digital asset infrastructure partners on custody models designed to meet different regulatory and operating requirements.
Some clients can also convert idle balances into digital dollar instruments that generate yield, with a share returned to customers. That places the business at the intersection of traditional banking infrastructure and digital asset rails, though its core pitch remains broader cross-border money movement.
Tom Borgers said Walapay is trying to bridge those systems rather than replace one with the other.
"We believe next-generation payment rails will become first-class financial infrastructure, but the banking system isn't going away anytime soon," said Tom Borgers, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Walapay. "It's important for us to bring both sides together seamlessly, so businesses can move money globally without having to think about the rails underneath."
Walapay also said its infrastructure is suited to a potential rise in AI-driven commerce, where software agents and automated applications need to transact across borders using the same payment networks as fintech clients. It sees that as an extension of the market it already serves rather than a separate product category.