Rewire is a multinational fintech company that provides online financial services tailored to the unique needs of millions of migrant foreign workers worldwide. Rewire was founded by CEO Guy Kashtan, CTO Saar Yahalom, VP of R&D Adi Ben Dayan, and Or Benoz.
| Website | rewire.com |
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In June 2020, Rewire won the FinTech category in the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) competition, the world’s largest startup competition for purpose-driven companies.
History
Rewire was founded in Israel in 2015 by Guy Kashtan, Saar Yahalom, Adi Ben Dayan, and Or Benoz in response to the growing demand for affordable and accessible financial services of the local foreign worker population. Initially it served the thousands of Filipinos working in Israel as domestic caregivers for the elderly and expanded its services to additional migrant populations such as Indians, Thais, and Chinese to name a few. Initial investors included Israeli-based groups such as Our Crowd, Viola Fintech and Moneta VC. Additional initial investors included BNP Paribas (Opera Tech) and Standard Bank of South Africa.
In 2021, the company announced that it had completed a series B funding round of $20 million and also a collaboration with Israel’s Bank Hapoalim. New investors joined this round of funding such as Renegade Partners, Glilot Capital Partners, and Jerry Yang, former Yahoo! CEO and director at Alibaba, through AME Cloud Ventures. At the same time, the company announced it had secured an EU Electronic Money Institution license (EMI), granted by the Dutch Central Bank, which allows the fintech startup to (I) issue electronic money, (II) provide payment services, and (III) engage in money remittance. Rewire was also granted an expanded Israeli Financial Asset Service Provider.
In February 2022, Rewire announced its partnership with insurance giant AIG and Insurtech company Quiver. Later that month, Rewire announced a $25M strategic round of investment, in which insurance company Migdal participated. This move was made to make insurance accessible to migrants.
In June 2022, Rewire announced its acquisition of the Israeli prepaid card company Imagen.
The Rewire platform
The Rewire platform is offered in eight different languages and a localized app. In providing migrants with tailored financial solutions and allowing them to send payments back to their country of origin, features of the platform include a payment account (IBAN), and a debit card payment solution as well as local money transfers, bill payments in the migrant’s country of origin, insurances, and more.
Social good
In 2020, Rewire won the FinTech category in the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) competition, which draws inspiration from the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as it entered under the Reducing Inequalities goal. Rewire follows the idea of a Double Bottom Line, in which a company’s value is measured by two bottom lines; conventional fiscal performance and positive social impact.
