After six years of profitability, Amsterdam-based file sharing platform WeTransfer decided to pursue a second funding round. It has just raised €35 million in a Series B round led by the European growth equity firm HPE Growth, with significant participation from existing investor Highland Europe. Leveraging HPE’s expertise, WeTransfer will emphasize recruiting the best talent to develop its tools faster.
Founded in 2009 as a file sharing service for the creative community, WeTransfer prioritizes ‘offline’ values, such as trust, transparency, and ethics. The startups original file transfer product has driven WeTransfer’s growth to over 50 million users, sending more than a billion files each month.
“The opportunity to partner with HPE was too good to miss,” said Gordon Willoughby, CEO of WeTransfer. “Our ambition is to be behind every great idea, and since acquiring Paper and Paste we’ve seen rapid adoption of our tools globally. HPE recognize the value we provide and want to help us continue to scale quickly. We have an exciting product road map for the autumn, so having HPE join us, together with Highland Europe, gives us the stability and skills we need.”
Since launching its first product, WeTransfer has developed additional tools help creative people without breaking their flow. These include the mobile app Collect, which allows people to organize their ideas and share them with coworkers, and currently boasts 4 million monthly users); the immersive sketching tool Paper, which WeTransfer acquired last year and has been downloaded 25 million times; and the collaborative presentation tool Paste, which is used by 40,000 active teams.
“Highland Europe saw WeTransfer’s potential at an early stage and we’re thrilled to deepen our involvement today,” said Irena Goldenberg from Highland Europe. “Last year’s acquisition of Paper and Paste, plus the development of powerful new user tools, solidifies WeTransfer’s leadership.”
