Boston payments firm Flywire raises $250 million in IPO

Flywire chief executive Mike Massaro.Courtesy of Flywire

Flywire, a Boston financial-tech company focused on international currency transfers, set the price for its initial public offering Tuesday, selling 10,440,000 shares of common stock at $24 each. The price was at the top of its projected range.

The company raised $250.6 million in the deal, and its stock is expected to start trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol FLYW.

Flywire, formerly known as peerTransfer, was founded in 2009 by Iker Marcaide, then a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who experienced firsthand the challenges associated with making international wire transfers. Those payments are often subject to high transfer fees and could end up costing more depending on the currency transfer rates, which fluctuate.

Flywire aimed to solve that problem as a type of middleman that bundles payments, negotiates cheaper rates with banks, and tracks the progress of international transactions. The company’s services have since expanded beyond education to helping health care systems accept payments from international patients, and facilitating money transfers for travel-related expenses and between businesses.

The company was backed by local venture investors, including Boston-based Spark Capital, which led Flywire’s first major fundraising round, as well as Bain Capital Ventures and F-Prime. Flywire has more than 450 employees globally and said it can settle payments in 240 countries and territories and in more than 130 currencies.