Prime Ventures, Partech Africa and management have acquired TerraPay for an undisclosed sum.

In addition, the same investors, joined by IFC, have invested $9.6m to fund the company’s expansion.

Pieter Welten, Partner at Prime Ventures, said: “We identified TerraPay as an attractive investment opportunity. Led by a strong and experienced management team, TerraPay has a unique market position and strong economic moat comprising of licenses and regulatory approvals, a world-class digital payments platform and global network of partners. Our investment should allow the company to further expand and scale its operations.”

TerraPay, a company incubated by Comviva, the India-headquartered mobile solutions provider, provides Payment Infrastructure Services that help more people around the world to transfer money quickly, safely, and affordably.

The company does this by enabling payment service providers such as banks, mobile money operators, money transfer operators or other payment providers to instantly connect to each other at a low cost.

Since its start in 2015, TerraPay has acquired more than 25 licenses to operate in over 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe and is expanding globally.

Ambar Sur, Founder and CEO of TerraPay, said: “We believe in our mission to address financial inclusion by making real-time national, regional and global payments accessible to everyone. We are excited by this validation from our marquee investors, and look forward to growing rapidly and reaching most of the world’s underserved in the coming years.”

TerraPay management developed the fintech company to address the pain points people in many countries experience when trying to make payments across different channels.

Since its inception, the TerraPay founders focused on: (i) developing a robust, scalable and agile tech platform; and (ii) compliance and the acquisition of payment intermediary and money transfer licenses.

TerraPay has built partnerships with global money transfer companies including Western Union, Visa, Xpress Money, MoneyTrans, Paga, Ria, Instant Cash, Ripple and MoneyGram.

Paulo de Bolle, IFC’s Global Director, Financial Institutions Group, said: “By adding TerraPay to IFC’s growing fintech investment portfolio, we are supporting the company to grow and expand while helping to lower the costs and streamline the process to send money home. Fintechs like TerraPay play a vital role in increasing financial inclusion in emerging markets.”

Cyril Collon, General Partner at Partech Africa, added: “We are excited to join efforts with an outstanding group of investors and a superb team for the next part of TerraPay’s journey.”

We have been impressed by the cutting-edge platform TerraPay’s teams have developed. This platform will play a key role in reaching the interoperability goals necessary for true financial inclusion. The impact for end-customers is already massive in terms of quality of service, reliability and speed.”