Montréal-based FinTech startup Payment Rails has rebranded as Trolley and secured $7 million CAD in Series A financing to fuel the growth of its global payouts offering.
The funding round and name change comes as demand for Trolley’s platform has “skyrocketed” since the beginning of 2020.
The funding round and name change comes as demand for Trolley’s platform has “skyrocketed” since the beginning of 2020, after the shift to remote work led many companies to become more willing to work with contractors and suppliers from around the world.
With a fresh brand and Series A funding, Trolley aims to better represent its product evolution and meet growing demand for its payments solution.
“Payment Rails is an industry-insider term that implies infrastructure, and we’ve gone beyond just payouts infrastructure,” said Tim Nixon, Trolley’s founder and CEO. “Over the past six years, our offering has evolved from a mass-payout solution to a global payouts ecosystem—one which addresses many payout-adjacent problems.”
The startup’s all-equity Series A financing was led by New York-based Pace Capital, and saw Pace General Partner Chris Paik join Trolley’s board as part of the round, which brings the FinTech firm’s total funding to about $10 million. Trolley said the investment “validates Trolley’s progress in meeting the payout needs of a borderless, internet-based economy.”
Founded in 2015, Trolley offers a white-label payouts management platform and API that allows hundreds of businesses to automate and manage payouts, collect recipient tax and banking information, and mitigate fraud and risk.
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The startup officially launched its global payments API in December 2017, shortly after closing a $1.1 million angel-backed funding round that saw it add former PayPal President Scott Thompson as an investor board advisor. Trolley also raised a total of $1.9 million through a series of bridge round investments in 2018, 2019 and early 2020 from angel investors and Toronto-based venture firm GreenSky Capital.
Demand for Trolley’s offering has grown significantly during COVID-19: Nixon told BetaKit the startup’s revenue has increased by 310 percent, while payment volume on its platform has risen 335 percent over the same period.
Today, Trolley permits users to make and manage payments to over 1.1 million creators, musicians, artists, makers, vendors, on-demand workers, and suppliers across more than 215 countries in 135-plus currencies.
“Trolley is solving an issue that lies at the heart of the internet economy: international payouts,” said Paik. “Having watched Twitch and Patreon work through payment orchestration challenges for their increasingly international-based content creators, it was clear that every other creator platform and marketplace would eventually run into the same issues.”
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The startup said that demand for its platform has “skyrocketed” since the beginning of 2020, as the shift to remote work led many companies to become more willing to work with contractors and suppliers from around the world.
Trolley plans to use the new capital to “expand and accelerate” its product roadmap, and enhance its existing banking networks and payout methods to broaden its geographic reach.
More specifically, the firm intends to increase the number of direct integrations with “top ERP and accounting platforms,” take its tax compliance offerings into markets outside the United States, and add more local and instant payout options to its platform. To accomplish these goals, Trolley plans to grow its 40-person team to more than 100 in 2022.
“This funding allows us to better enable businesses to reach workers from all corners of the world and, through that, offer creators, on-demand workers, and suppliers the ability to bring their specialized talents to a global market,” said Nixon.
UPDATE (12/07/21): This story has been updated to note responses from Tim Nixon.
Feature image courtesy of Trolley