A local startup is getting national recognition for its payments technology.
Borderless is the winner of the 2022 US FinTech Payments Technology of the Year award. The company, based in Louisville, offers a global payment solution that aims to make business payments simple, transparent and affordable in more than 120 countries in local currencies.
The annual US FinTech Awards spotlights innovators in the financial technology sector across 20 categories. Borderless was a finalist in two of those categories, Payments Technology and Startup of the Year, and won the former against some big-name competitors: Flywire (Nasdaq: FLYW), Fundbox, TravelBank, Central Payments and CoreChain.
"The payments space is a very competitive space, so we're thrilled, but also humbled at the same time," said Raffi Kayat, founder and CEO of borderless, in an interview Friday.
The news of the US FinTech award comes just weeks after borderless won the VISA Direct Award. As I previously reported, the company was one of five North American finalists for the Visa Everywhere Initiative in May. The award came with a $10,000 cash prize, but more significantly, borderless will be able to continue to work with VISA and its executives.
A lot of work has went into getting the spotlight, Kayat said. Borderless recently developed a web app platform and an API (application programming interface) product that is designed to help marketplaces, such as Uber and Airbnb, with their payouts, which is the ability for them to pay anyone, anywhere.
"We've been able to get clients in that space across multiple different industries, like the freelancing gig economy," Kayat said. "Our platform allows them to manage their payments, handle their commission payouts and automate the compliance aspect of it where we can onboard merchant and contractors in over 120 countries."
Borderless also now has the ability to issue accounts in seven different currencies, which means businesses can have different IBANs (international banking account numbers) depending on what country they are operating in.
It sounds complex, but it just means clients can pay businesses like they are local to that region. And for marketplaces, that means they can go global with one API, Kayat said.
"The reasons why the judges named us Payments Tech of the year is because we're really simplifying business payments and making international payments approachable, cost-efficient and fast," he said. "We've built a smart infrastructure over the past couple of years now where we're able to provide low and flat fees and great foreign exchange rates, and the smart infrastructure that we have is able to avoid bank fees or wire fees using this global, yet local infrastructure that we have."
One of borderless's most recognizable clients is Gopuff, a delivery company. Kayat said borderless is helping Gopuff pay its drivers in the United Kingdom, processing thousands of transactions a day and millions of dollars a month.
And borderless has been able to accomplish all of that with a team of less than 10.
"We've focused a lot on internal processes and efficiencies, which makes us punch above our weight," Kayat said. "Right now, we're exploring a regional sales expansion to accelerate our growth in some key markets.
"We've had successes in Europe, and recently, we've had successes in South America and in Southeast Asia. So we're looking to see how we can accelerate our expansion in those markets."
Since its founding in 2016, borderless has raised less than half a million in outside capital, but with the recent awards and momentum, Kayat is looking to fundraise in the near future.
He said the company is crafting a list of potential investors, placing priority on strategic investors, meaning investors that are familiar with the space or a larger company in the payments space.
