Astra, a provider of instant card-to-card funding as a service in the U.S., completed a $10 million Series A funding round led by FPV Ventures, with participation from Slow Ventures and Allegis Capital, as well as a $30 million line of credit through CoVenture to support the company’s rapid expansion in the payments industry.
“Time to money is one of the most vital metrics for fintechs, financial institutions and marketplaces. How quickly a user is able to complete the onboarding process, fund their account and begin spending money are critical aspects that will likely impact a user’s activity level,” Gil Akos, CEO and co-founder of Astra, said. “Astra has earned a reputation for offering one of the simplest and most effective instant funding and payment automation solutions on the market to speed up these processes. With this new capital, we are excited to not only grow our portfolio of solutions but to bring faster money movement capabilities to a larger customer base.”
“There’s a big shift in the market where profitable growth for fintechs really matters. Astra is the case study for amazing, profitable growth that enables others to easily move money without having to build a large in-house payment infrastructure. That’s why we backed them and are excited to be on the journey with them,” Pegah Ebrahimi, co-founder and managing director of FPV.
“Account funding for customers can be a startup’s worst nightmare – they are rife with fraud, slow settlement times, fees and gatekeepers,” Will Reeves, CEO and co-founder of Fold, said. “Yet, they are critical to onboarding those new customers. Astra makes it exponentially easier with instant funding and accelerated ACH payments.”
