Elevate

Fintech | Sudan

Elevate is a financial technology company that provides FDIC-Insured USD accounts for non-US residents

What they do

Elevate provides US-based USD deposit accounts that sit with a licensed banking partner. Elevate's FDIC-insured USD accounts offer ACH, wire inbound and outbound payments, and a free Mastercard debit card. Elevate’s regional payout partners enable its users to send their money back home at very low cost. Elevate targets non-US residents in emerging markets who struggle to get paid in USD.

Why we invested

Elevate focuses on three areas that are critical to banking the emerging market remote worker : 

  1. Core Banking Services : A fully featured USD bank account provided by its licensed US banking partner offering a complete set of banking services that have previously only been available to US residents.

  2. Cross Border Services : Functionality that has been tailored to remote workers in emerging markets like being able to send money back to their home accounts in local currency at the real market exchange rates. Customers are also able to send money back home in USD without prohibitive SWIFT costs where possible. Elevate allows them to send USD home up to 5x cheaper than SWIFT.

  3. A Direct Customer Relationship : Having experienced the pain of having one’s account blocked with no one to reach out to, or transfers being stuck with no explanations and no point of contact, Elevate serves its customers with a dedicated support team to ensure they can always speak to a real person when they need to.

The Founder

Khalid Keenan is the CEO and co-founder (YC ‘22)

Active in:

Sudan

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