Sling Cash, a worldwide peer-to-peer funds app leveraging stablecoins and Solana, has launched for customers with US financial institution accounts, the startup introduced this morning.
The app was conceived as a worldwide equal to Venmo that makes use of the Solana community and Paxos’ USDP stablecoin to maneuver cash round immediately for low charges. The transfer comes because the crypto business as an entire appears emboldened working within the US following Donald Trump’s presidential election win final week.
Sling Cash was based in 2022 by Mike Hudack, who beforehand was chief product officer on the UK-based neobank Monzo. I spoke with Hudack again in August, and he stated he turned thinking about constructing a worldwide Venmo with crypto rails after sending crypto from London to a buddy in San Francisco whereas investing in a Montana-based DAO. The KYC protocol and pockets onboarding was onerous, however the fee went via virtually immediately, and Hudack realized he’d hit on one thing helpful.
Since then, Sling Cash has deployed in additional than 75 international locations, which now contains the US. By utilizing stablecoins in tandem with Solana, which prices a fraction of a cent in transaction charges, Sling Cash could be very environment friendly, not less than for those who put apart the query of on- and off-ramping funds. It additionally plans to utilize RTP and FedNow, that are sooner funds networks developed by banks and the Federal Reserve.
Sling Cash has raised $20 million in seed and Collection A funding, however its cap desk doesn’t have typical crypto names on it: Union Sq. Ventures led its Collection A in August, and Ribbit Capital and Gradual Ventures are additionally buyers. USV does an excellent variety of crypto offers — it notably invested in Coinbase — however it’s extra of a generalist tech outfit. The identical might be stated for Ribbit and Gradual. That is all to say that Sling Cash isn’t actually styled as a crypto app, and it doesn’t really feel like one if you use it for peer-to-peer funds.
“It’s not essentially a crypto product or a fiat product. It’s a funds product,” Hudack informed me in August.
Venmo, the PayPal-owned fee platform with tens of tens of millions of accounts in the US, is the incumbent that Sling Cash should chase. Like Venmo, Sling prices no switch charges.
In an e-mail, Hudack stated he plans to pry away Venmo’s market share by beginning “the place Venmo isn’t” — that’s, via worldwide funds. Hudack stated the crew plans to observe WhatsApp’s development mannequin by constructing a “essential mass” of customers for its worldwide providing earlier than convincing them that its product is sweet to be used at residence, too.
Hudack added that Sling Cash’s financial institution transfers are sooner than Venmo’s, and it sees a possible alternative to undercut the 1.5-3% that Venmo prices for immediate financial institution withdrawals.
Ben Mills, who’s a Solana ecosystem founder who beforehand headed up product at Venmo, informed me on the Lightspeed podcast that regardless of all its customers, Venmo was not worthwhile. The legacy cash switch system is riddled with bills that Venmo abstracts away, however Mills in contrast this to “placing lipstick on a pig.” With low-cost and prompt transfers facilitated on blockchain rails, Sling Cash might ditch a few of these bills altogether.
“As a society we’ve spent the final ~25 years connecting the world via media,” Hudack stated. “You’ll be able to stream video from any level on earth to every other level on earth, you possibly can textual content anybody on the planet, you possibly can e-mail, you possibly can have a voice name with anybody on the planet. All without cost. We’ve acquired the know-how now to attach your entire world financially and we’re going to do it.”
