Germany-based Ivy , a company offering a global API for instant bank payments, has secured USD 20 million in Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures . Ivy is building a network of networks for instant bank payments.

Over 60 geographies around the world are rolling out instant bank payment infrastructure, with Pix, UPI, FedNow or Open Banking being prominent examples. The company is bringing these regional and heterogeneous systems to a unified gateway, opening up the world of real-time payments to businesses. Instant bank payments cut out intermediaries like credit cards or wallets and settle money directly from bank to bank.

This structurally reduces transaction costs and fraud risk while increasing settlement speed. The Series A round worth USD 20 million followed a USD 7.7 million seed round led by Creandum only a few prior to this announcement. Ivy’s approach to instant bank payments Ivy has built a holistic payments platform for instant bank payments, including smart routing capabilities, risk management, and further value-add services like instant payouts and payment links.

Ivy’s smart routing engine leverages Machine Learning technology to choose the bank data connection with the highest probability of success in real time. Their technology significantly improves conversion and success rates while decreasing fraud risk. Currently, Ivy is connected with over 500 million bank accounts in over 50 geographies.

The company currently serves verticals such as ecommerce, travel, marketplaces, and fintech. Via their API, they are also partnering with PSPs. Businesses profit from lower transaction fees, instant settlement, and independence from cards and wallets.

Statements on Ivy’s success Commenting on this development, Ferdinand Dabitz, Co-Founder at Ivy, said that they help businesses dramatically improve their payment mix. The fast succession of Seed and Series A is a reflection of the value we are delivering to our customers. This fundraise signals strong market conviction in what we are building.

The fresh money enables us to further invest into our product. Having experienced Ivy’s instant bank payments solution, Ludwig Krayl, Head of ecommerce at Mactrade, one of Europe's largest Apple resellers, said that with every Ivy transaction, they save money that directly contributes to their bottom line. Their risk management tools have proven powerful.

Within a couple of weeks of being live with them, >36% of their standard payments are processed via Ivy. Also emphasising the utility of Ivy’s global API, Andrew McCormack, General Partner at Valar Ventures, said that Ivy is building for Account-to-Account what Visa and Mastercard have built for Cards: A single, global point of access for merchants and consumers. Driven by a powerful payments platform and sophisticated smart routing that drives conversion and success rates for businesses.

The market demand for Ivy’s solution has proven fruitful. .