Tel Aviv-based fintech startup Grain has emerged from stealth mode with a bang, announcing a whopping $50 million in funding to launch its innovative foreign exchange (FX) hedging platform. The platform aims to democratize access to FX risk management, making it possible for businesses of all sizes to better navigate the complexities of cross-border transactions.

The funding, which consists of a $33 million Series A round led by Bain Capital Ventures and an $18 million seed round, brings the total investment in Grain to over $50 million. This significant injection of capital will enable the company to accelerate the development and rollout of its platform, which has already processed over $1 billion in transactions while in stealth mode.

To put this figure into perspective, Grain estimates that there are over $150 trillion in cross-border transactions annually, making its current processing volume a tiny fraction of the total market. However, this early traction speaks to the vast potential of Grain's platform to transform the way businesses manage FX risk.

Grain's platform borrows concepts from other areas of fintech to create a unique solution for FX hedging. Typically, FX trading is the domain of large enterprises working with investment banks, which use derivative algorithms to make decisions on currency trades. Grain's innovation is to right-size this concept for smaller transactions, using AI to find the best FX hedges and wrapping up multiple trades to achieve economies of scale.

This embedded solution can be seamlessly integrated into any interface used by finance teams, providing a simple and intuitive way to manage FX risk. The resulting shifts in currency values can then be used to inform pricing decisions for goods sold across marketplaces and other points of sale.

Co-founder and COO Michal Beinisch likens Grain's innovation to "what Stripe did for payments, we have done for derivatives." This bold claim is backed up by the impressive backgrounds of Grain's founders, all of whom have extensive experience in financial services.

CEO and co-founder Dor Golan was previously a managing partner at Blue Orca Capital and co-founder of Horizon, a crypto liquidity firm. Chief business officer Aharon Navon led Barclays CEEMEA FX and rates trading, while Beinisch was the COO of Barclays Israel and Global Head of Rise, Barclays' fintech innovation platform. Chief product officer Nir Galon has led product at several fintech companies, including Melio, Bluevine, and Rewire.

The Series A funding round was led by Bain Capital Ventures' Mark Fiorentino, who was an early employee at Stripe before moving to VC at Index and now Bain. Fiorentino praised Grain's founders, saying, "Founder-market fit is important, and it's difficult to find a better example of this than the Grain team... They've built Grain with an AI-native, user-first ethos, which means they can deliver greater stability, cost savings, and even revenue uplift for customers while reducing their largest operational headaches."

With its innovative platform and significant funding, Grain is poised to revolutionize the FX hedging landscape, providing businesses of all sizes with the tools they need to navigate the complexities of cross-border transactions. As the company continues to grow and expand its platform, it will be exciting to see the impact it has on the global economy.