D1 Capital Partners revealed as mystery buyer in TransferWise secondary share sale

The sale places TransferWise as one of Europe’s highest valued fintechs.

International money transfer service TransferWise has seen its valuation jump to £4bn following a US hedge fund buying a 4 per cent stake in the company for £160m, as first reported by Sky News. 

Founded in 2018 by Wall Street investor Daniel Sundheim, D1 Capital Partners, which has stakes in the likes of Netflix, Facebook, Google, Disney and Microsoft, has added TransferWise to its portfolio. 

The secondary share sale, which was first reported last week, was estimated to be worth around £240m, slightly higher than the actual £160m, placing the fintech’s valuation at around the £4bn ($5bn) mark. 

TransferWise’s $5bn price tag places it among the highest valued European fintechs, just behind Revolut, Checkout.com and Klarna which are all currently valued at $5.5bn. 

To date, TransferWise has raised £710m in primary and secondary funding, with existing backers in the firm including Merian Global Investors, Andreessen Horowitz and Sir Richard Branson. 

The news comes just two weeks after the fintech was given the green light by the FCA to offer its 8m customers digital wealth management products. 

With £2bn already in its back pocket, TransferWise has a comfortable head start on its fellow fintechs, Nutmeg, MoneyBox, Wealthify and Moneyfarm

Following the announcement last week, TransferWise CEO Kristo Käärmann said: “TransferWise is evolving from being a pure payments provider, to the number one alternative for the banking needs of those living and working between countries.” 

Founded in 2011, TransferWise has since amassed 8m customers who send over $4bn in cross-border payments every month.