Company Overview
About Thunes
Thunes is a Singapore-headquartered global payment infrastructure company founded in 2016 by Peter De Caluwe and Floris De Kort. It operates a proprietary cross-border payment network that connects payment service providers, mobile money operators, digital wallets, banks, and card networks across more than 130 countries and 80+ currencies. Rather than serving consumers directly, Thunes provides the B2B infrastructure layer that enables its clients — including PayPal, Visa, Western Union, and major fintech platforms — to offer fast, affordable, cross-border payment capabilities to their own customers in markets where correspondent banking networks are slow, expensive, or absent.
Business Model & Competitive Advantage
The company raised a $72M Series C in 2022 led by Apis Growth Fund, with participation from GIC (Singapore's sovereign wealth fund) and existing investors. Thunes operates two primary business lines: Direct Global Network (DGN), which routes and settles cross-border payments between financial institutions and wallet providers in real time; and its SMART (Thunes Smart Account Remittance Technology) network, which powers last-mile disbursement to mobile money accounts, bank accounts, and cash pickup points in frontier markets. The company processes billions of dollars annually and has established direct integrations with over 300 financial institutions and mobile money operators.
Competitive Landscape 2025–2026
Thunes is deeply embedded in the emerging-market payment infrastructure stack, where it helps bridge the gap between developed-market payment senders and last-mile recipients in markets like sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. Its network-of-networks model — connecting disparate local rails into a unified API surface — positions it as a critical middleware provider for global fintechs, remittance companies, and enterprise treasury operations seeking to pay out in markets where SWIFT correspondent banking is impractical.
Key Differentiators
Strong Challenger
Thunes is an established challenger with significant market presence and competitive offerings in Financial Services.
Frequently Asked Questions
Estimated Visibility Trend (Beta)
Simulated 8-week rolling score
Based on estimated brand signals. Historical tracking coming soon.
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