Pathao co-founder's newest venture Wind secures $3.8M

Hussain Elius and Fahad Ahmed, the co-founders of Pathao, a Bangladeshi consumer tech firm, have set their sights on their newest enterprise, Wind.app. This Singaporean remittance firm, powered by the Polygon blockchain, aims to unlock the payment channel between Southeast Asia and the US.

• Workings: Customers can convert US dollars into USDC stablecoins, which can be sent to countries like the Philippines via blockchain technology. Once there, they can be converted into local Philippine pesos.

• Funding: The company recently secured a significant $3.8M in a pre-seed round. This was led by Global Founders Capital, a German VC firm, and Spartan Group, a Singapore-based blockchain investment firm. Other participants included Saison Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Tiny VC.

• Application of Funds: Elius, who serves as Wind's CEO has revealed in an interview with Tech in Asia that the newly obtained funds will be directed towards product development, bolstering compliance and licensing measures, and other initiatives.

• Competition and Uniqueness: Wind's standout feature is its non-custodial wallet, indicating that it does not retain customer funds, thereby enabling users to manage their own assets. This approach allows the company to offer faster and cheaper services.

• Charges: Currently, Wind charges less than 0.3% of a transaction's value, eclipsing competitors who charge up to 1% for direct money transfers.

• Growth and Plans: Since its inception in 2022, Wind has seen nearly $3M in transaction value. It also secured a grant from the XRP Ledger accelerator program. As for future plans, Wind aims to focus on steady user growth and network expansion in 2024, extending its services to more countries.

The Wind team is comprised of pioneers in their respective fields. Elius and Fahad bring with them a rich legacy of their time with Pathao, where they diversified the firm to cover ride-sharing, food delivery, e-commerce, payments, and logistics.