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Thiel-Backed Fintech TransferWise Records Third Year of Profit

Thiel-Backed Fintech TransferWise Records Third Year of Profit

(Bloomberg) -- TransferWise Ltd., one of Europe’s largest financial technology startups, said its revenues grew by more than half in the latest fiscal year.

The firm, backed by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and Sir Richard Branson, said on Wednesday it recorded 179 million pounds ($223 million) of revenue for the fiscal year ending March 2019, up from 117 million pounds the previous year.

The U.K.-headquartered fintech also notched a net profit of 10.3 million pounds, its third successive year of turning a profit, according to the statement, up from 6.2 million pounds.

TransferWise was started in 2011 when Estonian-born co-founders Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Kaarmann grew frustrated with the high fees charged by banks on money sent from London back to their homeland. The firm now serves 6 million customers around the world and processes 4 billion pounds in customer payments every month, according to the statement.

A May funding round valued the company at $3.5 billion and attracted investment from funds managed by BlackRock Inc.

TransferWise currently employs about 1,600 people across the globe. In May the company said it had plans to boost that by an additional 750 employees in the next 12 months. It’s hiring in London, New York, Singapore, Budapest and Tallinn, Estonia, among other locations, adding engineers, data scientists and people working on product development.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alastair Marsh in London at amarsh25@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net, Giles Turner, Molly Schuetz

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.