Financial news

Ivy: API for open banking

Founded by Ferdinand Dabitz, Peter Mosebjane Lieck, Joshua Becker, and Simon Wimmer, Ivy allows customers to transfer funds from their bank accounts to merchants, eliminating the need for credit cards and reducing transaction fees.

Ivy offers a comprehensive suite of services, including tools for merchants to seamlessly integrate open banking payment options into their check-out processes. 

Additionally, the company provides features such as “smart routing” to enhance transaction speed, robust risk management, instant payouts, and payment links.

Ivy’s primary focus lies in open banking-based payments, a sector experiencing growth within individual markets.  

The company’s API connects with over 500 million bank accounts in 50 geographies across Europe, the US, MENA, and SEA regions.

Currently, Ivy works with customers such as online merchants in marketplaces, travel, e-commerce and fintech.

The company has also collaborated with non-profits, enabling merchants to deliver green rewards to their customers, essentially letting cards and wallets pay for climate action.

The investors

Based out of New York, Valar Ventures is a venture capital investment firm that invests in seed-stage, early-stage, and later-stage financial technology companies across the globe. The VC has already backed Wise, N26, Qonto, Stash, among others. 

“Ivy is building for account-to-account what Visa and Mastercard have built for cards: a single, global point of access for merchants and consumers,” says Valar’s McCormack in a statement to TechCrunch. 

“Driven by a powerful payments platform and sophisticated smart routing that drives conversion and success rates for businesses. The market demand for Ivy’s solution is extremely impressive,” he adds.