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helps money get from point A to point B, even if there鈥檚 a flight, time difference and currency change in between. In other words, the London startup is trying to make it easier for merchants to process cross-border payments so businesses can sell beyond their immediate geographic reach.听

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The startup, founded in 2012, has just raised $80 million from a group of new investors, including , . (a member of the World Bank Group), , and Siam Commercial Bank. Existing investors , , , and also participated in the round. The latest Series E round brings Currencycloud鈥檚 total funding to date over $140 million, .听

Now that we know Currencycloud has new cash and a goal that could help businesses and people globally, let鈥檚 do two things: learn a bit more about the technology and address the rather hungry payments behemoth in the room, Visa.

The Tech

On its website, Currencycloud has a pitch for potential companies turned customers: 鈥淲ith Currencycloud, you don鈥檛 need to build your own payment infrastructure or engage in lengthy banking negotiations to make international payments.鈥澛�

This means businesses can skip talking with banks about bank fees (which said is the most pricey part of the cross-border payment process), exchange rates, unknown taxes and more.听

And it looks like there鈥檚 business in this infrastructure-as-a-service aim. So far Currencycloud claims it has processed more than $50 billion to over 180 countries. It has also nabbed customers such as Monzo, Starling, Revolut and, more recently, Visa.听聽

That brings me to my next section, where we look at Visa鈥檚 role in this whole story.听

And Visa

Visa, which has had quite the investment appetite lately, is both a customer of and an investor in Currencycloud. And if you look at the startup鈥檚 website, there鈥檚 a hint to why: Beyond just serving businesses, Currencycloud also has an eye on helping fintech companies.听

On the website, Currencycloud says it helps the next generation of fintech companies quickly and easily build cross-border payments into platforms, 鈥渨hile maintaining complete control of the user experience.鈥�

鈥淥ur suite of modular APIs integrates with your existing ecosystem to provide your fintech with total transparency of payments and FX, access to our global payment network with full-scale compliance support, and end-to-end automation of the payment process,鈥� it says.

While is not new to payments, its latest investments all trend toward a full-fledged suite of fintech services. Most recently, the company acquired Plaid for $5.3 billion for its technology that helps payment processing startups like Venmo, Acorns and Expensify. Days later, Visa invested in Very Good Security (subtle, I know) for tech that hides and anonymizes sensitive data. And most recently, it invested in , which provides payment services for global merchants, .

Bottom line–as dozens of fintech startups hack everything from a , to cash , Visa is currently more focused on those working on the plumbing within financial services. Today鈥檚 Currencycloud investment, which will add, SVP and treasurer of Visa Inc., to the board, is no different.

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