Rise raises $6.3 million to expand in Europe

Is this the start of the hype around start-ups linked to payments and stablecoins?

What is certain is that Stripe's takeover of Bridge at the end of October for the record sum of $1.1 billion has whetted appetites and fuelled ambitions.

French-American start-up Rise, which operates in the same universe as Bridge, has just raised $6.3m (Series A) from a number of funds including Draper Associates, Polymorphic Capital and DCG.

The New York-based start-up had already raised $3.8m (Seed) in spring 2023. Draper Associates was one of the main investors.

Launched in 2022, Rise has developed a blockchain payment infrastructure to manage all things billing, payment and freelance management for businesses.

"There is a real demand from companies that have activities between different countries and an international team," explains Hugo Finkelstein, co-founder and CEO of Rise.

Demand from traditional companies

Rise's platform has been developed on Arbitrum, a secondary layer of Ethereum that enables a huge number of transactions to be carried out for modest costs.

"Our entire infrastructure is on Arbitrum, even though we have the capacity to receive and send funds on other chains", Hugo Finkelstein points out.

Rise uses the Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon and Avalanche blockchains in particular.

With this round of funding, the company, which employs around 15 people, wants to develop new services and reach out more and more to traditional businesses.

"At the beginning, we only had crypto customers and we are seeing more and more traditional businesses taking an interest in our services," explains Hugo Finkelstein.

Rise also wants to expand in Europe, and particularly in France. Other players such as Fipto or Nilos are already present on the Old Continent, but given the potential growth of the market, there is room for several players.

To go further, feel free to read our report on cryptos and payment giants.