Fintech veteran backs the young guns
Sydney based Cryptocurrency payments start-up, CryptoSpend have announced that Andrew Porter has taken a minority stake in the business and will join its advisory board. Porter, setup and ran the local arm of, now Ant Financial owned, World First for 7.5 years and was an early and key player in the growth and success of Aussie Fintech pioneer OFX. He has of late, been an active investor in the Australian start-up scene through his family investment vehicle Aventine Capital.
Porter, who has been involved in the International Payments space for 20 years, brings a wealth of experience, given the highly successful outcomes of both OFX and World First. He was also a seed investor in Synthetix (formerly Havven) one of Australia’s most notable Crypto start-ups.
“What excites me about CryptoSpend is that Andrew and Richard are two very smart young guys who have created a product that will make spending digital currencies an easy, day-to-day option for the mass market”, said Porter. “This is the pointy end of innovation that will reshape the future of payments”, he added.
CryptoSpend, started in 2018 by Andrew Grech and Richard Voice, and incubated in the UTS start-up hub, have built a solution that allows payment for everyday items, with digital currency, via a prepaid card. Their product will initially allow holders of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple to top up their physical or digital prepaid cards by transferring the chosen currency to a digital wallet linked to the card. Customers can use this card globally, instantly converting their digital currency to fiat.
CryptoSpend will also be integrated into the NPP (New Payments Platform), allowing its customers to have access to instant crypto-to-fiat payment rails, such as PayID, BPay and OSKO. This will all be handled by the company’s proprietary treasury systems.
Andrew Grech, Co-Founder and CEO of CryptoSpend, said “we were excited to have someone with Andrew’s payments, fintech and start-up experience invest in our business”. Co-Founder Richard Voice added, “we wanted someone who could really help us navigate the tricky path of a start-up, and the ultimate challenge of scaling the business. Andrew has obviously done this successfully a few times”.
Murray Hurps Director of Entrepreneurship at the University of Technology Sydney added that “CryptoSpend is an incredible idea, an incredible start-up and an incredible team. It might sound audacious, but big wins need big ambitions, and the team really are building something special”.
Porter has also further added to his blockchain and crypto credentials of late with the recent announcement that he will be taking the helm as CEO of Ripple partnered FlashFX later this year.
