Astra named to GGV Capital’s first embedded Fintech 50 list
The company recognized for its simple, immediate account financing and automated payment solutions
SAN FRANCISCO, February 1, 2023–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Astra, a leading provider of instant payment infrastructure in the US, was named to the Embedded Fintech 50, a list launched by GGV Capital in partnership with Crunchbase, to recognize the most promising fintech companies in the eyes of startups investors.
GGV Capital convened 57 securities firms to nominate and vote for the 50 honorees. Having raised more than $12 billion, the Embedded Fintech 50 demonstrates the enthusiasm of venture capital investors in the growth and innovation of this sector. To celebrate, the honorees will ring the closing bell on the Nasdaq MarketSite today.
“As the financial landscape continues to evolve, fintechs and other financial services organizations are faced with the challenge of providing faster account funding to their users, which comes with a number of hurdles around product development, compliance costs and payment operations,” said Gil Akos, co-founder and CEO of Astra. “At Astra, we have successfully developed a solution that fills this critical industry gap, enabling businesses to offer fast, secure and frictionless transfers. This incredible honor from GGV Capital underscores the team’s dedication to continuous innovation for embedded payment capabilities, and we are thrilled to be recognized among the other impressive fintech companies on this list.”
Through a suite of pre-built automations, inter-bank transfer orchestration and integrated anti-fraud, Astra’s vertically integrated API enables developers to achieve a level of efficient financial functionality previously unattainable. Astra’s solution makes it easy to add accelerated and risk-reduced transfers to any application.
To date, Astra has completed more than $250 million in automated transfers with a 99.997% success rate – a 1000X improvement over standard ACH error rates. Additionally, 90% of these transactions were fully automated and required no user action. They remain the only API provider of automated and dynamic financial transfers on the market.
“Embedded fintech is a bright spot in today’s market, and it is exciting to see how companies are democratizing access to financial services through technology,” said Hans Tung, managing partner at GGV Capital. “We are excited for the continued evolution of the embedded fintech landscape and further creative innovations to come. Congratulations on the Embedded Fintech 50 honors!”
About Astra
Astra provides advanced payment infrastructure that enables faster transfers for fintech products, financial institutions and businesses. Astra’s proprietary, vertically integrated API allows developers to easily build instant payments and accelerated bank transfers into their products, with built-in optimizations to reduce risk. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company was founded in 2016 by co-founders Gil Akos and Sam Morgan. For more information, visit https://astra.finance/.
About Embedded Fintech 50
The Embedded Fintech 50 includes the most promising embedded fintech startups nominated and voted on by investment firms. GGV Capital launched the list in partnership with Crunchbase and convened 57 investment firms to develop the first list. This year, 175 companies were nominated, and 50 were selected through a voting process that required the nomination of portfolio and non-portfolio companies. Nomination criteria included companies with a primary product focus on fintech, the US as a primary market and the Series A stage. Embedded fintech is defined as financial service platforms or financial service providers that are integrated into commercial or financial service platforms. For more information on participating investors and listing methodology, visit: https://www.embeddedfintech50.com.
About GGV Capital
GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs to build category-leading companies worldwide. Focused on multi-stage, sector-focused investments, GGV manages $9.2 billion in investments across the US, China, Southeast Asia, Israel, Latin America and India. Founded in 2000 with roots in Singapore and Silicon Valley, GGV has supported more than 500 companies, including Affirm, Airbnb, Alibaba, BigCommerce, Boss Zhipin, Bowery Farming, Grab, Full Truck Alliance, HashiCorp, Hello, Keep, Kujiale, NIU, Opendoor Technologies, Peloton, Poshmark, Slack, Square, StockX, Udaan, Wish, XPeng, Zendesk and more. More information can be found at www.ggvc.com and @ggvcapital.
See the source version at businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230201005288/en/
Contacts
Media:
Aileen McNelis, NextTech Communications
[email protected]
732-813-1146
Christine Hinton, GGV Capital
[email protected]
415-939-0139
