A Creative Way to Use Unspent Foreign Currency

TravelersBox, an Israeli tech startup that assists travelers to deposit their excess foreign currency , has closed a series A funding round of $10 million.

The funding round, led by Arbor Ventures, also attracted several existing investors including iAngels, Pitango Venture Capital, Global Blue, Pereg Ventures and IPE Ventures. According to Reuters’ estimates, the company has so far raised $15.5million.

Tomer Zussman, CEO and founder of TravelersBox, said that there are over 3 billion people who make international trips every year. In this regard, his company’s mission is to offer these travelers an easy and efficient way to redeem the value of their foreign money which was not spend, and could otherwise be misplaced or lost.

The company has kiosks in Israel, Italy, Turkey, Philippines, Canada and Georgia. These kiosks allow travelers to deposit any remaining foreign money, and exchange it for a wide range of products including PayPal gift cards, Prepaid Visa, iTunes, Skype credit, charitable donations, etc. The Israel-based kiosks also enable the travelers to transfer their unused foreign currencies directly into their bank accounts.

Dror Blumenthal, TravelersBox’s chief marketing officer, said that the company is planning to open 200 new kiosks around the world this year. He added that the expansion plan will focus more on Asian markets, with new kiosks opening in Hong Kong, India and Japan before the end of February.