Foreign exchange transfer developer Hedgewiz has found two new investors in Eyal Waldman, former CEO and founder of Mellanox (which was sold to Nvidia in 2019), and Stella Handler, former CEO of Bezeq. They join other investors who have invested approximately $5 million in the Israeli company, which aims to create a fast and cheap platform for international money transfer.
Hedgewiz is currently making an effort to aid Ukrainian workers who have been cut off from their banking systems.
“We have a solution for the case as is happening now in Ukraine: The employee and the employer open an account on the platform so that the Ukrainians can have access to the money even if the Russians close the local banking system to them,” explained Hedgewiz CEO Pavel Soifer.
In recent weeks, attention has been called to SWIFT, which is currently the market standard platform for international money transfer. While the system is reliable, the team at Hedgewiz believe they can improve upon the nearly 50-year-old platform.
“Our solution includes a unified platform for multi-currency international management through leading liquidity providers, which enables businesses to carry out currency risk-hedging operations if necessary and also to accept and pay global payments,” Soifer said.
The company’s CEO is considered one of the leading Israeli experts in the field of foreign exchange. As part of his service as an officer in the IDF Intelligence Corps between 2006 and 2010, and played a key role in Israel’s effort to impose economic sanctions on Iran.
The two latest investors join a number of other prominent investors in the company such as Shabtai Adlersberg, chairman and CEO of Audiocodes; and Yaakov Kotlitsky, who sold Visonic in 2011 for $100m.
“There is a unique platform here that provides a solution to market failure in the field of money transfer between businesses and entities in international markets, with the potential for high-rate growth,” said Handler.
Company chairman Dr. Adam Reuter said, “The joining of such strong investors to the company will lead to an increase in the activities of Hedgewiz, whose need for its services is now more palpable than ever when there is an awkwardness in foreign currency transfers around the world.”