Onramper secures $6m seed funding to bridge gap between fiat and crypto
Onramper – a fiat-to-crypto gateway aggregator – has raised $6m in seed funding.
The funding round was led by EQT Ventures, with participation from Backed VC and TRGC.
Providing a hub for fiat gateways and app developers, Onramper supports all currencies and payment methods in the fiat gateways aggregated within the platform.
The new capital will be used to accelerate the product roadmap and quadruple headcount over the next six months in a bid to further bridge the worlds of fiat and crypto.
To access cryptocurrency and related Web 3.0 services – including NFT art, gaming, and decentralised finance – millions of users rely on centralised exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance. Crypto-based protocols, services and apps currently have a complex onboarding process.
In order to overcome onboarding difficulties, fiat gateway companies emerged to provide fiat-to-crypto on-ramping infrastructure for any crypto-platform. Fiat gateways also help banish technological and compliance difficulties for developers, who are often constrained by legal and regulatory issues across different geographies.
While this effort has succeeded in making the onboarding process slightly easier, many challenges remain. Many fiat gateways are emerging, but bad geographical coverage, high KYC friction, high fees and low authorisation rates plague the industry. A significant portion of transactions still fail, which is where the need for better infrastructure and orchestration becomes most apparent.
Uniquely, as an aggregator, Onramper provides access to all fiat gateways in one widget, which is free to use and fast to integrate. In turn, Web 3.0 companies can build their own flow through the platform’s robust API. Meanwhile, Onramper’s partner fiat gateways benefit from additional transaction volumes, less integration effort, and access to new markets.
Through Onramper’s infrastructure, businesses and users are able to access to more than 150 cryptocurrencies across 180+ countries and 20+ payment methods.
Founded in June 2020 by Thijs Maas (CEO), Salah Abdelbaki (CTO), and Maurits Dewina (COO) – participants and builders in the crypto ecosystem – the Onramper team has experienced the limitations of fiat gateways first-hand.
“To unlock all the benefits of cryptocurrency and Web 3.0 and empower people with access to the future of finance globally, we need to evolve beyond the common binary view that pits fiat vs. crypto,” explained Thijs Maas.
“Instead, it’s time for a new paradigm that sees the two as core components of a single financial world. To accomplish this, we must create new infrastructure that inherently links both worlds seamlessly.
“This core to Onramper’s mission to help build and access the decentralised world, making the transition to a truly open financial future as frictionless as possible. But onramping is about more than just making fiat-to-crypto infrastructure. It’s about onboarding any user onto Web 3.0, eventually, without them even noticing.”
Tom Mendoza, Deal Partner at EQT Ventures, added he was convinced that the next millions of users coming into the crypto ecosystem will come from applications and games that are yet to be built.
“To successfully onboard these users into the ecosystem, it will be crucial to have robust and scalable fiat-to-crypto infrastructure,” he said.
“Crypto-based platforms need fiat-to-crypto conversion to onboard users – but most platforms can’t sell crypto themselves. When meeting with the Onramper team, we instantly aligned with their ambition to provide a service synonymous with rapid implementation, ease of use, and cost efficiency. I can’t wait for the next chapter.”