Lightspeed Venture Partners’ backing of Travel Wallet is part of a wider trend, with Asia at the forefront of the global surge in digital transactions. Efforts toward digitising payments have also extended to travel, especially in the wake of the travel industry’s increasing growth following the end of the pandemic.
Earlier in 2024, it was announced that Lightspeed Venture Partners also led a Series B funding round in Singapore-based YouTrip – a fintech offering a multicurrency wallet for consumers and business accounts with corporate cards for SMEs.
More details about the funding round
Travel Wallet is a fintech that enables travellers to exchange various foreign currencies. Its flagship product, Travel Pay, is a prepaid card that users can use to exchange funds and make payments in 46 different currencies. The fintech reportedly has a cumulative transactional volume of USD 2.2 billion and, by April 2024, is said to have issued 5.3 million cards in South Korea.
Officials from Travel Wallet emphasised that they plan on using the funds to expand internationally. According to previous reports, the company has set up subsidiaries both in the US and Japan and plans to start its expansion efforts later in 2024.
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the enterprise, consumer, health, and fintech sectors. Over the past two decades, Lightspeed backed companies including Affirm, Carta, Cato Networks, Epic Games, Faire, Forty Seven, Guardant Health, Mulesoft, Navan, Netskope, Nutanix, Rubrik, Sharechat, Snap, Udaan, and Ultima Genomics, among other. The company currently manage USD 28 billion.
In late 2023, it was announced that US-based fintech engine Vestwell secured USD 125 million in a pre-empted round of funding also led by Lightspeed Ventures Partners.