Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer helped launch the company back in 2011, helping grow the firm into a global remittance platform. (Remitly Photo)
Remitly co-founder Matt Oppenheimer is stepping down as CEO after nearly 15 years growing the Seattle-based digital remittance company into a profitable, publicly traded fintech giant valued at nearly $3 billion.
Veteran tech and finance executive Sebastian Gunningham will replace Oppenheimer, effective Feb. 19. Oppenheimer will remain chairman as the company leans into what it calls its next chapter.
“This transition isn’t about stepping back. It’s about stepping up into the role that best serves Remitly’s long-term success,” Oppenheimer wrote in an email to employees. He stressed that the leadership change “didn’t happen overnight,” as he approached the company’s board “a while back” to discuss long-term succession planning.
Gunningham previously led Amazon’s marketplace and payments businesses, and was a member of Amazon’s executive “S-team.” He also did a brief stint as co-CEO at WeWork and more recently helped lead a digital transformation push at Spanish banking giant Santander. “I’ve long admired Remitly’s mission and the real difference it makes in people’s lives,” Gunningham said in a statement.
Remitly stock was up more than 10% in after-hours trading Wednesday.
The CEO change marks the end of an era for Oppenheimer and Remitly, which also on Wednesday reported double-digit increases in customers and transaction volume in the fourth quarter, along with adjusted EBITDA of $88.6 million, nearly doubling from the prior year. Send volume on the platform rose 35% to $20.8 billion.
Sebastian Gunningham. (Remitly Photo)
Remitly’s mobile technology lets people send and receive money across borders, including immigrants in the U.S. and U.K. who support families back home in countries such as the Philippines, India, El Salvador, and others. The service eliminates many of the forms, codes, and agents typically associated with international money transfers.
The Remitly story began more than a decade ago after Oppenheimer had just returned from Kenya, where he was working for Barclays and realized how hard it was for families to send and receive money overseas.
He teamed up with co-founders Josh Hug and Shivaas Gulati, taking Remitly from a tiny upstart that graduated from Techstars Seattle in 2011 into a global remittance player that battled incumbents such as Western Union and MoneyGram. Remitly raised around $400 million from private investors and went public in 2021 at a valuation of nearly $7 billion.
Remitly now has more than 9.3 million quarterly active users — up 19% year-over-year — and employs 3,200 people across the globe. It reported $442.2 million in Q4 revenue, up 26% year-over-year.
The company has been laying out a new evolution that keeps remittances at the core but adds products like a small‑business payments service, a membership offering with multi‑currency wallets and debit cards, and new tools for higher‑value transfers and stablecoin-based balances.
Recent earnings language notes that Remitly is evolving beyond a remittance company into a diversified, cross-border financial services provider, serving both consumers and businesses across a growing set of use cases.
In his memo to staff, Oppenheimer highlighted Gunningham’s personal story — “Argentine by birth, Scottish by heritage, and American by journey” — as aligning with Remitly’s immigrant-focused customer base. “Like many of our customers, he brings a truly global perspective,” Oppenheimer wrote. “He knows what it feels like to navigate a global financial services system. He understands that we aren’t just moving money; we are moving hope.”
Oppenheimer, who was Ernst & Young’s Pacific Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2016, told employees he will remain Remitly’s largest individual shareholder “with no plans to sell” and will stay “deeply engaged as chairman, not as an operator of the business where I will defer to Sebastian.” He said he intends to spend more time on cross-industry initiatives where Remitly’s scale and technology can address structural issues in global finance; invest more energy in external relationships and board roles; and be more present with his family while pursuing personal goals such as training for a Half Ironman in July.
“This transition isn’t a conclusion. It’s a renewal. It is a deeper commitment to the vision we have held from the beginning,” he wrote. “I’m grateful. I’m humbled. And I’m excited for the bright future ahead.”
