Industry Payment services Website aligncommerce.com Headquarters San Francisco | Area served Worldwide Founded 2014 Type of business Private | |
 | ||
Founder Aldo Carrascoso
Marwan Forzley Key people Marwan Forzley (CEO)
Aldo Carrascoso (COO) - (CTO) | ||
Align commerce pay and get paid globally
Align Commerce is an online worldwide payment service provider. The company was founded in 2014 and has its headquarters in San Francisco. Align Commerce claims to be the first company to use bitcoin's blockchain to enhance international transactions. It was named among the most promising bitcoin startups of 2014 by Bitpost.
Contents
History
Align Commerce was founded in San Francisco by Aldo Carrascoso and Marwan Forzley in early 2014. Forzley's previous company, eBillme, provided a platform that allowed online merchants to charge customers through an escrow payment system. Following the sale of eBillme to Western Union in 2011, Forzley worked for them as the general manager of ecommerce for three years. Eventually he started considering a similar to eBillme platform for international commercial transactions or for the payment of employees based abroad. To achieve such a service, Forzley and Carrascoso thought of using bitcoin's blockchain as the container of transactions between endpoints in different countries, in order to bypass banks that act as intermediaries in such transactions. Carrascoso’s early work on bitcoin protocol applications coupled with his work on the Jukin Media licensing platform allowed them to launch the first version of the multi-rail system in mid-2014.
Starting its operation, Align Commerce was accepted in Tribe4 startup accelerator program. After launching the application on a private beta mode, the company managed to offer its platform on public beta, in April 2015, claiming to be the first company to successfully use blockchains for international financial transactions. Upon the launch of its beta version the company's services were made available in a total of 34 countries, with the University of Nicosia being among the first clients. A wide range of investors including Pantera Capital, Boost VC, Bitcoin Opportunity Corp and Fenway Summer among others, provided Align Commerce with seed funding in order for the company to develop.
Align Commerce closed a $12.5 million funding round in November 2015. This round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers who had previously never invested in a bitcoin related company. Along with the funding, KPCB general partner Randy Komisar became a member of Align Commerce's board of directors. Additional investors in the round included Recruit Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group, and FS Venture Capital LLC.
Services
Align Commerce offers payment services making use of blockchain databases. When a business sells products or services abroad, it has to issue an invoice notification to the buyer to be paid in the buyer's local currency. The blockchain will then carry the payment to the receiver, bypassing intermediaries banks. The Align Commerce system then converts the currency into the seller's currency and makes a deposit into a bank chosen by the seller.