Mesh, formerly known as Front Finance, is a startup dedicated to creating a platform for the efficient transfer and management of digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies. Recently, the company successfully secured $22 million in a Series A funding round, with Money Forward leading the investment and participation from notable firms like Galaxy, Samsung Next, Streamlined Ventures, SNR.VC, Hike VC, Heitner Group, Valon Capital, Florida Funders, Altair Capital, Network VC, as well as various individual investors.
The injection of these funds brings Mesh’s total capital raised to date to an impressive $32 million. Mesh’s co-founder and CEO, Bam Azizi, explains that the fresh investment will be instrumental in advancing their tools for deposits, payments, and payouts, while also providing support for their go-to-market efforts.
Azizi emphasizes the growing demand for digital-first financial experiences among consumers, whether in online banking or managing collectible assets. Mesh, according to him, is reimagining the fundamental connection layer required to enable these digital-first financial experiences, empowering users to access and control their finances on their own terms.
Mesh, which took part in the Startup Battlefield 200 competition at TC Disrupt 2023, was established in 2020 by Azizi and Adam Israel. Prior to launching Mesh, Azizi successfully founded the cybersecurity and identity company NoPassword, which was acquired by LogMeIn in 2019. Israel, on the other hand, brought extensive banking sector expertise to Mesh, having served as a managing director at HSBC.
Before launching Mesh publicly in September 2022, Azizi and Israel spent several years building its core infrastructure, along with the company’s business-to-business offerings. Their aim was to position Mesh as the “intermediate connection layer” for non-traditional assets.
Mesh offers businesses a solution to facilitate the movement of assets, including cryptocurrencies, across various platforms. Users can connect different asset classes and accounts with read, write, and transfer capabilities to Mesh, allowing the platform to aggregate all their accounts seamlessly.
One of Mesh’s key features is its support for in-app transfers of assets across exchanges and wallets, in addition to payments and payouts of cryptocurrencies. Azizi emphasizes that Mesh prioritizes user privacy and security by not storing personal information or credentials, ensuring that transfer destinations remain anonymous from the perspective of external accounts. Importantly, Mesh does not directly handle the assets, providing a purely direct account-to-account transfer service.
Azizi envisions Mesh as a plug-and-play solution that particularly appeals to businesses seeking to enhance interoperability for their users without the need to develop APIs from scratch for every platform. The ultimate goal is to have Mesh play a role in every digital transaction, making it more secure, compliant, and user-friendly.
While the question of whether Mesh is indeed more secure, compliant, and user-friendly than existing solutions is open to debate, the company claims to have already garnered 70 paying clients from the finance and digital assets industries. Given the substantial market size, with millions of individuals worldwide, including 16% of adult Americans, involved in digital asset purchases, and a global market capitalization of $3 trillion as of the previous November, Mesh’s investors are undoubtedly eyeing a significant opportunity.
“With this recent funding, we are in an incredibly strong place to execute against our long-term vision,” Azizi stated confidently.
