National Australia Bank’s (NAB) venture capital fund, NAB Ventures, has led an investment round in San Francisco-based foreign exchange payments company Veem.
Veem (formerly known as Align Commerce) provides a platform that leverages blockchain technology for cross-border business to business payments, enabling organisations to send and receive payments in local currency.
NAB Ventures General Partner Melissa Widner led the series B funding round totalling USD 25 million, which also included investments from GV (formerly Googles Ventures), American VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Silicon Valley Bank and Japanese fund SBI Investment Co. Ltd.
“Technology in the global payments and foreign exchange space is evolving rapidly as customers identify new platforms to help them do business quickly and easily,” Ms Widner said.
“We identified Veem as a market leader in both technology and business model. This investment forges a close relationship with the company that will provide insights into user expectations of where technology is heading for cross-border payments.
“We’re excited to be working with Veem; their platform provides customers with a great user experience, low fees, fast clearance and great transparency.
“As Australia’s largest business bank, we’re continually looking at services that have the potential to make life easier for our business customers,” said Widner, who will join the Veem board following NAB Ventures’ investment.
Veem CEO and Co-Founder Marwan Forzley said: “At Veem, we understand even ‘mum and dad’ businesses must embrace globalisation to compete with incumbents, grow their businesses and innovate.
“Unfortunately, the current international payments experience is fundamentally broken, stifling SMBs’ globalization efforts. Veem’s platform creates an experience that is as simple and frictionless as the current process is cumbersome and frustrating.”
Randy Komisar Partner, Kleiner Perkins said: “We’re excited to be investing in Veem, along with a number of other high calibre funds from across the globe, including NAB, who impressed us with the way they managed and led this funding round. Business to Business foreign exchange payments is undergoing massive change and we’re looking forward to working alongside all of the other investors in Veem, including NAB, in the future.”
The deal is NAB Ventures third investment, following announcement of a stake in Sydney startup Data Republic last year, along with seed investment in health tech Medipass Solution in February.
See Veem’s media announcement here: https://veem.com
