When Michael Dunworth and I started Wyre (what was Snapcard back then) in early 2013, we wanted to allow anybody in the world to be able to use their crypto to buy things on the internet. I think we were even the first people to allow you to pay the IRS with bitcoin.
Not many of you know, but we had this super hacky browser extension that overlaid a website’s shopping cart, grabbed and sent us all of the items from the customer’s cart, popped up a Bitpay invoice where the customer would pay using their crypto, we manually processed the orders using our credit cards in the back end, and then shipped it to the customer.
It was crazy and to be honest, we didn’t know where it was going to take us, but there were a lot of things that we did know (a) crypto was going to be massive and (b) we loved helping people solve really hard problems.
It became an obsession.
While it’s a weird thing to know you’re living through history (the injustice, the pandemic, the inequality, the election), when taking a step back, you start to see what you’re most grateful for — Wyre’s resilience.
Wyre’s resilience stems from our obsession.
In 2018, we made a decision to completely close down all of our business lines and focus on lowering the barrier to entry for fintech entrepreneurs around the world. This started the journey of launching the first onramps product to the crypto ecosystem. Closing down profitable business lines and convincing a team that we want to offer onramps to the DAPP community during the early stages of a bear market was insane.
But we powered through this with the strong belief that crypto was the future and that Wyre was in a unique position to provide developers a set of tools to help them build faster/better.
Let’s fast forward to today.
- Over 130 applications rely on Wyre to onboard customers into their platforms- from regulatory compliance to fighting fraud
- The DApp community has grown over 345% since 2018. Wyre has been a staple of the wallet architecture and on/off-ramping services of these platforms
- The onramps space is getting competitive (competition is a good thing for business)
Most importantly, Wyre’s obsession is still intact. The challenges crypto/fintech entrepreneurs face are still there and we’ve made it a priority to solve these challenges.
In light of this, there are a few announcements that we’d like to make:
Series B1
We’re excited to announce our Series B1 round of financing! Wyre closed a Series B round in early 2019($8M) and we had the opportunity to top up additional capital to continue growth ($3M). The round was led by Pantera Capital with investments from Boost VC, Fifth Era, Nice Capital, Kraken, and OK Group.
Product Changes
Lowering the barriers to entry for crypto/fintech entrepreneurs around the world requires clear communication and reliable products. During the past few weeks, it’s been great to see Wyre work together to execute on this goal.
From better communication to our partners to proper internal documentation on releases, the company is making it a priority to provide a hyper reliable suite of products.
This industry is moving fast, and it’s tempting to continue adding more and more features at a breakneck pace. But we’ve become a core piece of infrastructure in this industry, and we need to scale with it as it grows.
Today is just the beginning…
- Card Processing API — We’ve reshaped how we process cards globally and integrated these new APIs into our Checkout Widget. This is a solid step forward to helping increase conversion rates across the board for our card processing onramps. In addition to that, we’ve released the ability for partners to integrate within their platforms.
- Revamped API Docs — We’ve revamped our API Reference documentation and are actively working on more user-friendly documentation to help prospective partners get a better grasp of how Wyre works. The API Reference Documentation is live and the new Gitbook will be fully-fleshed out in a week!
- New website — Our old website did a poor job of describing what exactly we do here at Wyre. We offer many different services, so we’ve worked on improving that messaging and given our website’s aesthetic a much-needed refresh. You can have a look at the new site here.
What’s Next!
We’ve been spending the first part of the quarter tuning up our products, bug fixes, and improvements to conversion rate optimization. We’re returning to focus on our core product, which is our API.
You can expect more features, quicker onboarding, better rates, additional payment methods, and expanded geographic coverage in the coming weeks.
We’re working on the fundamentals prior to shifting focus.
We’re expanding the team to provide better service for partners and their users. We’ll now have dedicated integration support, more help on the sales team, and quicker product iteration with new developers coming on board.
Thanks for the support, we’re pumped.
— Yanni, Co-founder of Wyre
