WeTransfer From The Netherlands Got $25 Million in Series A Funding Round

WeTransfer, in file-transfer service, has completed a series A round of funding from investor Highland Capital Partners Europe.

The funding round will support the growth of the company across the US, Europe and beyond. Highland Capital Partners Europe, which has previously invested in Matchesfashion.com and Brandwatch in the UK and Rent the Runway and Malwarebytes in the US, has invested $25 million, taking up a minority share in the business.

The completion of fundraising is a milestone for WeTransfer, providing the company with an injection of both capital and expertise. With its track record of high profile investments, HCPE will play an active role in advising WeTransfer’s board and will help them to accelerate growth globally.

WeTransfer has been profitable since 2013 and has continued to grow its user base to over 70 million users. Having more than doubled its revenues in the last year the company will strive to maintain its position as a popular file-transfer service. It will use the investment to continue to innovate and develop its product portfolio and build the brand further across the US, Europe and beyond.

Bas Beerens, founder and CEO, Weransfer, commented: “Funding isn’t something we proactively looked for, but having been approached by a significant number of investors from across the globe in the past two years, we realised there were bigger opportunities to grow as a service and a brand. When HCPE approached us, we had an instant connection. In addition to supporting us with funding, HCPE will offer advice and expertise to help us achieve our goal to build on WeTransfer’s brand and offering.“

Tony Zappalà, partner, Highland Capital Partners Europe, said: “We are delighted to have invested in WeTransfer. The team has bootstrapped an amazing company, built around a product that creative professionals and consumers worldwide love to use. We look forward to working with them to continue making WeTransfer a fun, productive and intuitive experience, which wows its users every time.”

Zappalà and Irena Goldenberg, Partners at HCPE, will be joining WeTransfer’s board.

Going forward, the firm focus will be on building on its partnership strategy in the US and beyond and to carry on pushing the boundaries for the service.

The way content and information is shared is constantly changing, along with user development, and WeTransfer is continually challenging the market to make the experience as natural for users as possible. It is anticipating the users’ needs, making tweaks and improvements.

New partnerships, products and experiences will continue to form a key part of this, which will be debuted in due course and will help the company to maintain its position on exchanging digital content in an easy way.
 
Launched in 2009 by Bas Beerens and Nalden, WeTransfer was born out of a need to provide a solution for people to send large files easily. The founders’ desire of producing “something their parents could use” has led the team to a service without the complications of logins, signup forms, data capture and banner advertising.

WeTransfer is free when sending files of up to 2GB in size, or users can sign up to WeTransfer Plus to make 10GB transfers to multiple recipients alongside receiving 50GB of storage space and the ability to personalize and secure a channel.