Flywire started out as peerTransfer, a Boston company built to help international students pay tuition. Sending money to a foreign university meant bank wires, unknown fees, and payments that arrived without a name attached. Flywire let students pay in their own currency through methods they already used, from bank transfers to Alipay. By its 2021 IPO it handled payments from over 240 countries and territories in more than 130 currencies, for schools, hospitals, and travel companies.

From peerTransfer to Flywire

The company was formed in July 2009 as peerTransfer Corporation and took the name Flywire in 2016. Universities were its first market. Each school got one connection to Flywire, which handled currency conversion, tracked who paid, and settled the money. The same tools fit hospitals chasing bills sent as paper checks, and travel companies taking deposits from abroad. Flywire earned fees on the money it moved.

A Pandemic-Era Debut

Flywire sold 10.44 million shares at $24 each in May 2021 and listed on Nasdaq as FLYW. Its engineers worked from Boston, Valencia, Cluj, Chicago, and Tel Aviv. COVID-19 had slowed international student travel, its first market, when the company went public. Its network connected to local payment methods such as Boleto, Trustly, and PayPal's Venmo, so a family in Brazil could pay tuition abroad the way it paid bills at home. Flywire still trades on Nasdaq as FLYW.

Cover: Fukuroi: Famous Kites of Enshu (Fukuroi, meibutsu Enshu dako), Utagawa Hiroshige. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for kites on the wind (money flying across borders).