Monito Wins Tamedia as Investor in $2.5 Million Round to Expand Money Transfer Aggregator

"We're in an expansion phase. The challenge is to accelerate the rhythm in the coming months, as we aim to help migrants save $28 billion in fees," chief executive François Briod said in a telephone interview. Monito has tripled its user-base from 500,000 in 2017, and recently added Russian as the aggregator's ninth language, he said.

As more people work abroad the demand for transfers has grown. The World Bank expects the amount workers send to family living in low- and middle-income countries to increase by 11 percent, to a record of $528 billion this year. Including transfers between richer countries, global remittances may grow by 10 percent to $689 billion, according to World Bank estimates. At the same time, the industry's high margins are attracting more competitors from the mobile fintech sector. “Monito aggregates offers from 400 different services to save its clients as much as 90 percent on fees,” Briod said.

Switzerland's biggest media company, Tamedia AG, Lebanon-based venture capital firm B&Y Venture Partners and U.S.-based angel investor Alexandre Gonthier participated in the round. Tamedia's ownership of Switzerland's biggest online auction site ricardo.ch AG and real-estate platform Homegate AG, is an asset for Monito. These are "marketplaces with 100,000s of landing pages, that need to attract and convert users on a digital funnel. They have a real expertise in growing digital market places."

Briod, his brother Pascal and Laurent Oberholzer co-founded Monito after seeing donations to a Cameroonian-nonprofit get eaten up in transfer fees. They won 10,000 Swiss francs from Venture Kick in 2014 and participated in Venture Leaders Fintech's roadshow to New York last year.

“Venture Kick and Venture Leaders were both key parts of our history. At the time it was still a student project, the 10,000-franc kick was the first funds that we were able to use to test our idea, and unlocked our first marketing budget. The subsequent Kickers Camp helped us set a very high bar and really prepare to become entrepreneurs,” Briod said. “Venture Leaders to New York was all about the people: the group of fellow entrepreneurs at similar or more-advanced stages proved such high-value for advice and support.”