Author: Antoine Nguyen

Not too many businesses feel that getting to $50 billion of transactions represents barely scratching the surface. But payments specialist Thunes, which is today announcing the completion of a Series C funding round worth a little over $60 million, thinks that’s exactly where it currently stands.

“Around $150 trillion of payments go through [the banking industry’s international money transfer network] Swift and the correspondent banks each year,” explains CEO Peter De Caluwe. “Some of that is accounted for by large payments that don’t necessarily need to move quickly, but the type of payments we support come to around $60 trillion, so that is our total addressable market.”

In that context, the $50 billion of transactions that Thunes has completed since its launch in 2016 does indeed look relatively modest. Yet starting from scratch, the company has made impressive inroads into a market that was crying out for innovation.

Thunes started out with the intention of helping to connect the populations of Africa and Asia to the global financial infrastructure. In these two regions, it is telecoms players and ecommerce providers that provide people with the majority of banking services, rather than banks themselves; as a result, transferring money to and from them via conventional banking networks such as Swift is challenging or even impossible. Thunes therefore built an entirely new payments infrastructure to facilitate such transfers.

This work has expanded over the past seven years. Today, Thunes enables people to make payments to and from 130 countries worldwide, whether the sender and recipients hold bank accounts or alternative arrangements such as digital wallets. It has connected 3 billion such wallets alone. “Our network aims to connect everyone,” says De Caluwe.

To build that network, Thunes’ team have travelled the world, negotiating access and compliance terms with regulators and central banks in each new market. The result is an infrastructure that enables Thunes to offer a service level that traditional banks have struggled with: customers can make payments instantly, they get charged one upfront fee for the transfer, the recipient knows how much they will receive, and confirmation of receipt is provided.

Thunes last raised funding in the Autumn of 2021, when Forbes broke the story of the company’s Series B round. That cash enabled it to accelerate its growth trajectory – the company has added 30 new markets to its network since then – but also to make a couple of strategic acquisitions to build out its value model.

Today, the company essentially offers three products. Its traditional payments service is the mainstay of Thunes’ activities, but it also offers a compliance-as-a-service solution to banks, leveraging the in-house technology solutions it has developed to cope with requirements such as anti-money laundering regulation. The third arm is a collections business, enabling companies to collect payments from customers with digital wallets more easily.

Given that $60 trillion addressable market, De Caluwe believes the business is only just getting started. “All that limits growth is ourselves,” he says. “We have to move steadily but cautiously – there is no cutting corners in this business.”

Still, this is a business that has now built market reach to well over half the world’s population. It may therefore be surprising that Thunes is not yet a household name, but the company’s relative anonymity is explained by the nature of its customer base. Thunes has never been consumer-facing – rather, it deals with enterprise customers including some of the world’s largest digital money transfer operators, leading fintech banks, ecommerce and mobile wallet providers, and gig economy businesses. Customers include the likes of Visa. Revolut, Moneygram, UberEat and Deliveroo. That gives it a much lower profile than, say, Wise, the international payments company that has grown through a similar approach to building new infrastructure, but with consumers as the target market.

Thunes does have rivals, with obvious competitors including the likes of Airwallex, CashQ and NIUM. But De Caluwe argues that Thunes is the largest payments network in the world outside the Swift network and the only one to serve digital wallets so comprehensively. “It takes time and effort to build this sort of infrastructure for yourself,” he says. “But having that control is what enables you to offer high-quality services.”

As for the future, Thunes expects to have connected 5 billion wallets within the next three years. Today’s Series C round will provide it with further capital to support growth and to bolster its balance sheet, providing it with important credibility in negotiations with regulators and central banks. Further M&A is also possible, though not central to the firm’s strategy.

The money is coming from investors led by the London-based hedge fund Marshall Wace, with support from Bessemer Venture Partners and the private equity firm 01Fintech. “Our ambition is to provide everyone – businesses, entrepreneurs or individuals – with access to cross-border money movement at high speed and with absolute efficiency,” adds De Caluwe.

In 2022, footwear and lifestyle brand Vivobarefoot sold a record 773,000 pairs of shoes, but if you ask co-founder and Chief Ecosystem Officer Galahad Clark about his vision, he will tell you that above sales, the brand has much more far-reaching goals: human and planetary health.

I recently sat down with Galahad to discuss Vivobarefoot’s regenerative business initiatives that include aggressive sustainability goals, a recycle and repair platform, upcoming bespoke scan-to-print footwear, and why the brand believes that looking to indigenous cultures will show us how to improve modern footwear design.

Read more from our discussion below.

Christopher Marquis: Tell us a little about your background. The last name sounds familiar. How did you get into barefoot shoes?

Galahad Clark: My family’s heritage lies deeply rooted in the footwear industry – we are seven generations of cobblers from Glastonbury, Somerset England, dating back to 1825. While Clarks Shoes stands as one of the oldest and most recognized footwear businesses in the world, I began a personal journey to revolutionize the way society perceives shoes through the advent of Vivobarefoot.

Together with my cousin and co-founder, Asher Clark, we embarked on a global odyssey, immersing ourselves in the world of shoemaking. We sought wisdom from both contemporary shoemakers and indigenous craftsmen, seeking to absorb their knowledge and techniques. Throughout our travels, a paramount principle crystallized—the essence of barefoot design and the inherent purpose of footwear is safeguarding our feet from cuts, cold, and heat. We believe the most extraordinary piece of technology ever incorporated into shoes is the human foot itself. Thus, our brand pivoted around this profound realization, liberating feet to move freely as intended by Mother Nature.

Marquis: What does a regenerative business model look like at Vivobarefoot? What are you doing as a leader to impact social change?

Clark: At Vivobarefoot, we are committed to being a regenerative business both inside and out. This means our business is one that supports the connection to natural systems for the people that work in our company, those who make our products and the people that wear them. We want to foster a working environment where people feel welcome to bring their whole selves to work and therefore are able to discover more of their natural creative spark. I believe this humanness invites innovation, collaboration and purposefulness into the heart of everyday meetings and decision-making. Our culture of agility and empowered entrepreneurialism allows failures to be continuously transformed into learnings and reduces the burden of bureaucracy.

Looking outside, we aren’t afraid to shake up the status quo and revise ingrained, habitual approaches to commerce. This means swimming ever more firmly against the tide to achieve substantial social and environmental impact. In 2020 we achieved B Corp certification and we’re going above and beyond the usual 3-year B-Corp assessment by conducting self-assessments every year.

We also believe in value chains over supply chains. We offer complete transparency through our newly launched Digital Value Chains Map about exactly who we are working with, where they are, and how they are performing against Vivobarefoot standards. Additionally, we created an in-house impact fund, the Livebarefoot Fund, which is an incubation hub for social and environmental initiatives that aim to pioneer regeneration solutions. We achieve this through driving research, innovation and action in footwear, experiences and community engagement.

Marquis: Why do you believe ancient wisdom is the foundation for the future of human and planetary health? Can you tell us more about your projects with indigenous communities?

Clark: We have built our modern life on the belief that we are separate from nature. As a result, our sedentary, cushioned, toxic lifestyles is making us and our planet sick. Our base fulcrum at Vivobarefoot is the notion that we are nature and nature is us, so instead of fighting nature we need to let nature heal us and the way we believe we can embrace human nature is to “rewild” our lives.

We have traveled the world on the quest for the perfect shoe, and along that journey we were introduced to some of last persistence hunters left on earth based in the

Kalahari Desert of Africa, the Ju’/hoansi bushmen, artisan from the Saami community in Finland, the Mongolian feltmakers, the moccsain makers in Canda and cobblers in India. We began learning and collaborating with the cobblers who have been making shoes for millennia, and gained tremendous insight into how we could best simplify our designs, and improve the natural function and environment-specific performance in all our shoes.

We dedicated ourselves to working with the Ju’/hoansi tribe to create 2,000 sandal run that will be released this summer creating a grassroots enterprise where the profits are reinvested directly back to the local community. Reviving this imperative ancient craftsmanship with the San as well as other indigenous communities around the world will remain core to our ongoing indigenous advocacy efforts.

Marquis: As you know, a lot of industry players have made lofty promises with their sustainability platforms but are lagging in their delivery of circularity. What do you see lacking in the industry’s efforts to tackle environmental concerns? Is there enough transparency?

Clark: The truth is, no shoes are truly regenerative and anyone who claims otherwise is not being transparent. At Vivobarefoot, we utilize a Vmatrix tool to internally assess the sustainability of our design principles and score everything from longevity to materials and end-of-life potential. All of our shoes are made of biofabricated, recycled and natural materials and we are constantly working on ways to make footwear that is more easily recyclable repairable or biodegradable.

In 2024 we are tackling our biggest innovation yet when we launch VIVOBIOME in the US. The project will aim to solve the overproduction and manufacturing waste that is common in the months-long cycle it typically takes to produce a pair of shoes with a radical scan-to-print circular footwear system that will reimagine how footwear is created. Made-to-be-remade, the footwear will be made person-by-person, foot-by-foot, out of local materials.

Marquis: Tell us more about your e-commerce platform, Revivo. What can consumers do to make a difference at home?

Clark: Every year 22 billion pairs of footwear are dumped into landfills.

We want to try and combat this in a real way, so we created our recommerce platform, Revivo. Launched in July 2020, it is the first repair-for-resale website launched by a footwear brand. On Revivo, customers can buy professionally refurbished Vivos at 20-50% off the original price. Worn Vivos are cleaned, sanitized, and then checked so that any faults are repaired by a trained craftsperson before they are boxed and ready to be sold. This means that customers that shop on Revivo receive secondhand products that are certified as refurbished by experts, unlike on resale marketplaces. Revivo sells to more than 50 countries and offers more than 15,000 products at any given time, many from previous collections that are no longer available on the Vivobarefoot website.

Revivo offers a global take-back program that allows customers to send back worn Vivos to ensure that they do not end up in landfill. While we love seeing this circular economy implemented by a number of brands these days, the footwear industry is still catching up. We are probably most proud of the massive of growth in repairs we are already seeing, with nearly 31,000 last year. So the more Vivos that are returned back to us (currently we see 48% return rate), the more we can repair and keep them away from landfills.

By Ben Zimmerman, president at SmartMedia Technologies.

You aren’t alone if you’ve felt like the economy has been on a roller coaster since 2019. Following the outbreak of Covid-19, lockdowns, travel restrictions and other measures were introduced to reduce the spread of the disease—but also ended up leading to the shortest recession in U.S. history. While certain sectors have bounced back, the last few years have felt a little shaky.

So, are we inching toward another recession? A few months into 2023, the verdict is still out. As some point out, the argument may be a matter of semantics. The word “recession” has many interpretations, after all, but the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has stated that we are not in a recession. Some benchmarks have sent mixed messaging, making it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the future. In 2022, the inflation rate in the U.S. was 8%, compared to 4.7% in 2021. Conversely, unemployment rates have hit historic lows, dropping to 3.4% in January 2023, the lowest level recorded since May 1969.

As a business owner, you may feel pressure to predict the future. But let’s face it. Trying to anticipate every turn the market takes is an impossible game to win. So, what can you do? Here’s a secret: You don’t need a crystal ball to succeed. Amid times of turbulence, it’s crucial for businesses to stay vigilant and make wise decisions. And simply playing it cool may not cut it.

Opportunity breeds innovation.

It’s a well-observed business maxim that opportunity breeds innovation, and companies can succeed even in times of economic uncertainty. For example, Uber identified an opportunity in the transportation industry during the 2009 global financial crisis (although its ride-sharing service wasn’t launched until later). It now provides a popular and affordable mode of transportation. The company leveraged innovative technology to create new opportunities and disrupt traditional industries. And it’s still a household name.

So, should you dump all your funds into research and development? Not quite. Implementing cost-cutting measures during economic uncertainty is prudent. Focusing on maintaining strong customer relationships is wise. These are all sound business policies that you should not ignore. But businesses can also diversify their offerings, seek out new markets and invest in new technology. In other words, they can push their boundaries. As they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going—and while some brands play it safe, trailblazers know how and when to take risks.

Economic ambiguity can create gaps in the market. It’s during these times that traditional solutions are ripe for disruption. Consumers may change their spending habits due to emerging trends. Or they may become more willing to switch to alternative products as they become more selective about their purchasing decisions. And whether you’re developing a new product or reimagining a current one, nurturing the sales funnel with a healthy lead volume should be one of your top priorities.

You can boost ad spend with evolving technology.

By identifying gaps and listening to consumer needs, businesses can create solutions to fill them. One of the disconnects I’ve noticed is between consumers and big advertising. In 2021, Google, Facebook and Amazon alone were expected to capture more than 60% of U.S. ad spending, according to eMarketer. Recently, trust in the tech sector has become among the lowest in all sectors, with 32% of respondents considering it less trustworthy than other sectors, according to a 2021 Public Affairs Council and Morning Consult study. Consumer trust in data security is also a concern, as Pew research from 2019 showed that 70% of adults said their personal data is less secure than it was five years ago.

As the president of a company that offers a Web3 enterprise platform, I’ve found that Web3 has emerged as an innovative interlocutor between advertisers and consumers. Web3 is decentralized, often leverages blockchain technology for data storage and is not controlled by any single entity. Compared to traditional online advertising platforms—largely controlled by big tech companies—Web3 advertising could offer greater transparency to advertisers and consumers. Web3 advertising could also create more meaningful interactions. One way it can achieve this is through opt-in ads, which allow consumers to decide what data they want to share with advertisers. On the other hand, advertisers can track the effectiveness of their campaigns in real time to provide consumers with more targeted, engaging content.

Here’s how to get started with Web3 advertising.

Getting started with Web3 advertising requires understanding the fundamental concepts of blockchain, smart contracts and decentralized applications. To craft an effective strategy, consider your company’s objectives and goals in relation to Web3 advertising. Determine whether your target audience will be receptive to decentralized platforms and willing to engage with the Web3 ecosystem. From there, you can experiment with Web3-enabled advertising formats. For example, you can consider using NFTs to create collectible digital assets. Or you can use decentralized finance to incentivize token-based rewards or gamified experiences.

Collaboration with Web3 experts can also help kickstart the experimentation and implementation phases. This may mean seeking guidance from consultants, blockchain developers or specialized marketing agencies to help you navigate the complexities of this emerging field. Together, you can identify the best strategies for leveraging Web3 platforms that align with your goals and industry.

From NFTs to decentralized finance companies, Web3 has already begun to make waves. As I mentioned above, increasing ad spend during economic uncertainty can help boost brand awareness and help you stand out from the competition (who may otherwise be cutting back on their ad spend) while building customer loyalty. And increasing your ad spend with Web3 tactics could not only help you stay on the cutting edge but also help boost consumer trust.