Charging as “Emerging Market Stripes,” Turkish Fintech Sipai raised a $78 million Series B funding round, claiming a $875 million valuation in the process.
This round is important as Sipay is planning to expand to markets outside of Turkish, and will offer additional services such as remittances that Stripe currently does not offer in these regions.
The entire capital round was led by US-based Elephant VC with participation from Quantumlight, a VC company of Nik Storonsky, co-founder of Revolut.
Founded in 2019, Sipay operates an all-in-one app for managing digital wallets, investments and loyalty schemes, offering embedded finance, Forex transactions and other products. It works with partners such as Visa and Mastercard to integrate with large e-commerce providers such as Turkish banks and Trendior in Turkey. It has 6.3 million wallet users and 25,000 registered merchants.
Sipay has been making profits since 2023, claiming its revenue has increased five times the previous year. The company says it ended last year with a run-rate revenue of $600 million.
“Stripe sorts out one problem, but there is no full-scale fintech solution in our market,” said Nezih Sipahioğlu, founder and global CEO of Sipay. “That’s why we have different products.”
“Our services run as white labels as in the UK’s Solaris Bank, so any FinTech who wants to issue their own cards and wallets can do that through us,” he said.
He added that the startup bootstrapped its growth until June 2024, raising a $15 million Series A funding round led by ANFA.
“As the market becomes more globalized, Sipay’s focus on cross-border payment solutions will help drive international growth and trade,” said Peter Fallon, general partner at Elephant VC, in a statement.