CurrencyCloud founder steps aside
(24 April 2017 – United Kingdom) The founder of fintech business Currencycloud is stepping down from the board to focus on his new startup.
Nigel Verdon cofounded international money transfer business Currencycloud in 2008 and served as chairman up until two years ago. He is leaving to focus on his new fintech business RailsBank.
Verdon told reporters: “This is going well and my shareholders at RailsBank want me to concentrate on this fully. Currencycloud, to be honest the team are doing a stunning job."
He added the Currencycloud’s CEO Mike Laven has “built a brilliant team, a great brand.”
Verdon’s departure comes shortly after Currencycloud raised £20 million from Google’s venture capital arm, GV.
“Once you get GV and a lot of those guys, the board just gets bigger and bigger. Taking Currencycloud to the next step, once you get someone like GV on the board, they really know about scaling up businesses.”
Todd Latham, Currencycloud’s CMO and head of product, said in a statement: “Nigel is focusing on his new venture RailsBank. He stepped down as Chairman nearly two years ago to focus on new ventures and when we raised our series D investment from new investors, including GV, we re-structured the board. We are still very close with him and collaborate closely with his new company.”
Verdon new venture, RailsBank aims to provide a platform for businesses to let them easily tap into global banks, rather than having to open lots of different accounts with different people all over the world.
“RailsBank is a banking-led API that connects a network of global banks together to give access to global banking with 5-lines of code. Imagine a Stripe for banking, that’s what our aim is to be,” said Verdon.
Verdon added: “I think global banking is fundamentally broken for companies that want cross-border bank accounts, to send money, receive money, issue cards — that whole infrastructure you need as a new business or existing business. It was something I remembered when I grew Currencycloud. We wanted this infrastructure and APIs to access the banking but it just didn’t really exist.”
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