Company recognized for its simple, instant account funding and automated payment solutions

Astra, a leading provider of instant payments infrastructure in the U.S., was named to the Embedded Fintech 50, a list launched by GGV Capital in partnership with Crunchbase, to recognize the most promising fintech companies in the eyes of startup investors.

GGV Capital convened 57 investment firms to nominate and vote on the 50 honorees. Having raised more than $12 billion collectively, the Embedded Fintech 50 demonstrates the enthusiasm of venture capital investors in the growth and innovation of this sector. In celebration, honorees will ring the Closing Bell at the Nasdaq MarketSite today.

“As the financial landscape continues to evolve, fintechs and other financial services organizations are met with the challenge of providing faster account funding to their users, which comes with a slew of hurdles around product engineering, compliance overhead, and payment operations,” said Gil Akos, co-founder and CEO of Astra. “At Astra, we have successfully pioneered a solution that fills this critical industry gap, enabling businesses to provide fast, secure, and frictionless transfers. This incredible honor from GGV Capital underscores our team’s dedication to continuous innovation for embedded payment capabilities, and we are thrilled to be recognized amongst the other impressive fintech companies on this list.”

Through a suite of pre-built automations, transfer orchestration between banks, and integrated anti-fraud, Astra’s vertically integrated API enables developers to achieve a level of efficient financial functionality that was previously unattainable. Astra’s solution makes it simple and straightforward to add accelerated and risk mitigated transfers into any application.

To date, Astra has completed more than $250 million of automated transfers with a 99.997% success rating – a 1,000X improvement over standard ACH failure rates. Additionally, 90% of these transactions were completely automated and required no action from the user. They remain the only API provider of automated and dynamic financial transfers on the market.

“Embedded fintech is a bright spot in today’s market, and it is exciting to see how companies are democratizing access to financial services through technology,” said Hans Tung, managing partner at GGV Capital. “We are excited for the continued development of the embedded fintech landscape and further creative innovations to come. Congratulations to the Embedded Fintech 50 honorees!”

About Astra

Astra offers advanced payment infrastructure, powering faster transfers for fintech products, financial institutions, and enterprises. Astra’s proprietary, vertically integrated API allows developers to easily embed instant payments and accelerated bank transfers within their products, with built-in optimizations to reduce risk. With headquarters in San Francisco, the company was founded in 2016 by co-founders Gil Akos and Sam Morgan. For more information, visit https://astra.finance/.

About Embedded Fintech 50

Embedded Fintech 50 includes the most promising embedded fintech startups as nominated and voted on by investment firms. GGV Capital launched the list in partnership with Crunchbase and convened 57 investment firms to develop the inaugural list. This year, 175 companies were nominated, and 50 were selected through a voting process that required the nomination of portfolio and non-portfolio companies. Nomination criteria included companies with a primary product focus on fintech, U.S. as a primary market, and Series A stage. Embedded fintech is defined as financial service platforms or financial service providers that integrate into commercial or financial service platforms. For more information about participating investors and list methodology, visit: https://www.embeddedfintech50.com.

About GGV Capital

GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm partnering with founders to build category-leading companies around the world. Focused on multi-stage, sector-focused investments, GGV manages $9.2 billion in investments across the U.S., China, Southeast Asia, Israel, Latin America, and India. Founded in 2000 with roots in Singapore and Silicon Valley, GGV has backed more than 500 companies, including Affirm, Airbnb, Alibaba, BigCommerce, Boss Zhipin, Bowery Farming, Grab, Full Truck Alliance, HashiCorp, Hello, Keep, Kujiale, NIU, Opendoor Technologies, Peloton, Poshmark, Slack, Square, StockX, Udaan, Wish, XPeng, Zendesk, and more. More information can be found at www.ggvc.com and @ggvcapital.

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