UK-based Fintech firm VitraCash recently finalized its pre-seed funding round with £330,000 in capital coming from nearly 1,000 different investors. The company is now planning to introduce its “first-of-its-kind” smart debit card during Q3 2021.
As mentioned in an update shared with CI:
“With their app, users are able to connect all of their payment methods and then when they pay with their VitraCard debit card, VitraCash’s AI-based technology selects the best card for every transaction, factoring in elements such as FX rates, cashback, insurances, and more, creating a seamless payment experience no matter where you are.”
Koray Koska, CEO at Vitracash, noted that after spending considerable time traveling across the globe, his team realized that there were really high fees being charged for foreign exchange and making ATM withdrawals.
Koska added that they often traveled with many different payment cards with each one offering useful features like no ATM withdrawal fees or more affordable FX rates. Koska pointed out that “trying to figure out which card would be the best for every transaction was impossible” which is what inspired them to create VitraCash.
After introducing their CrowdCube campaign in April 2021, they managed to achieve their target within a few hours and then went into overfunding, and raised nearly 7x their intended amount.
Koska added:
“We could have never imagined that the campaign would be this successful and it gives us a lot of hope for our launch and the future of VitraCash.”
VitraCard is scheduled to be released in the summer months of this year. During the first few months, the system will be invite-only where CrowdCube investors will be “given the exclusive right to invite new people,” the announcement noted.
After a successful rollout period, the system will then “go live publicly in the fourth quarter of this year,” the update confirmed.
As explained in the announcement:
“The card designs are currently being amended and community members discuss and vote for them in the community forum. With many interested investors from CrowdCube joining the conversation and helping with great ideas.”
VitraCash is reportedly in “active discussions” with venture capital funds to lead a larger seed round early in 2022. The company also plans to reach several key milestones by that time.
Koska remarked:
“Together with all the terrific investors from CrowdCube and our huge waitlist which we are still ramping up, we will make a statement in the FinTech space with our launch. We are confident to reach a very high number of users until our next funding round.”
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