Product: Digital value infrastructure
Company: Runa
Runa, formerly known as WeGift, launched a digital value infrastructure designed to enable individuals and businesses to pay and get paid by anyone, instantly, anywhere in the world. Runa's unique payment rail supports all forms of digital value, the company stated, from fractional shares and gift cards to cryptocurrencies and NFTs, facilitating B2C payouts and C2B payments, free of charge for senders and recipients, across all asset categories.
Aron Alexander, CEO and founder of Runa, remarked that it would be unimaginable for any business not to accept credit card payments and soon it will be equally unimaginable for businesses not to accept any form of digital value. "With Runa's infrastructure in place, there is no need for one of these payment methods to be more complex than the other," he said.
"I am excited to witness the impact Runa will have as a means of transforming the way people use, exchange, and create digital value."
Anticipating digital currency and digital payment markets to become a multi-trillion-dollar industry within the next decade, Alexander observed that numerous services remain siloed within legacy payment systems.
With individuals holding billions of dollars in gift cards, airline miles, rewards points, and more, the fragmented commerce landscape complicates digital value exchange, he noted, with businesses not accepting credits individuals struggle to spend.
By boosting the liquidity of digital assets, Runa creates a win-win outcome for businesses and consumers, Alexander explained, while making it easier for businesses to adapt to an increasingly mainstream part of the economy. Runa envisions a world where enterprises can utilize digital value for mass payouts and consumers can spend the value they have received as they would like, he added, while purchasing the products they want, when they want them.
Alexander further noted that since its inception in 2016, the company has helped users unlock and spend over $1.1B worth of digital value in the form of gift cards, sending over 22.5M gift cards across 30 countries and 18 currencies, through partnerships with over 1,300 businesses.
Investors include Element Ventures, CommerzVentures, Clocktower Ventures, Volution Capital, AlbionVC, and SAP. Headquartered in London with teams across the globe, Runa provides a closed-loop prepaid and stored value ecosystem for gift card processing, improving access to new forms of digital assets at the POS or online, he noted, adding that this business model can be replicated with other forms of digital assets.
Runa stated that its platform is broadening capabilities to form a digital payment network for all categories of digital assets, including all of the company's existing functionalities. The Runa infrastructure can integrate all forms of digital assets, company representatives noted, including prepaid and branded currency, cryptocurrencies, web3 tokenized assets (NFTs), air miles, stocks, subscriptions, and more.
These digital asset classes are currently underserved by the payments industry, Runa noted it can complement legacy bank and credit card rails to create a comprehensive infrastructure capable of transferring value rapidly and at scale.
"Legacy payment systems are struggling to keep pace with the rapid digitization of the economy, and lack the necessary flexibility to transfer diverse assets outside of traditional card networks," Alexander said. "By pioneering a first-of-its-kind payment rail, Runa will make it significantly easier to unlock all forms of digital value, making them accessible across a wide range of merchant networks."
The Runa network reaches more than 1 billion people, Alexander pointed out, and connects merchants, organizations, and individuals in more than 30 countries and 20 currencies. With thousands of leading enterprises relying on Runa to reward, incentivize, and disburse funds to the people they serve, the company directly connects to over 1,400 networks and sales channel partners, enabling digital value to move more efficiently and economically than legacy systems. 
Website: https://wegift.io Contact: cs@wegift.io
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