AirTM gets $7m funding to fuel LatAm fintech
AirTM, a finserv firm operating in Latin America, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by BlueYard Capital to foster growth across multiple e-markets in the region.
With this funding, AirTM aims to accelerate growth plans and extend its reach to people who are “held captive by restrictive, unreliable, and costly local financial industries run by archaic banking and government institutions”.
AirTM operates a blockchain-and-bank-connected digital wallet and peer-to-peer exchange platform (the AirPlatform) that provides financial services to consumers and businesses in Latin America.
The firm aims to step up where reckless monetary policies and political instability have eroded faith in local currencies.
“We’ve driven huge growth by enabling the exchange of a diverse range of financial assets at free market rates and providing a digital wallet to hold those assets,” comments Ruben Galindo, AirTM’s co-founder and CEO.
AirTM was founded in 2015 and has experienced growth in Venezuela and surrounding countries due to Venezuela’s hyperinflation, currency exchange controls, and rapidly growing diaspora fleeing the country’s economic collapse.
Over 300,000 consumers and businesses in Venezuela and surrounding countries use AirTM to preserve wealth by saving in USD, and to access remittance, payments, and donations at free market rates.
AirTM completed its seed round in November of 2017, raising $2 million from Mexico City-based Ignia, Hong Kong-based Wintech Ventures, and on BnktotheFuture, a fintech crowdfunding platform. AirTM’s angel round in 2016 was led by Cloud Money Ventures.
Blueyard has been a lead investor behind various decentralised blockchain-based protocols, such as Protocol Labs / IPFS, Decred, Filecoin, and OB1.
