Drew Durbin
Co-founder and CEO of Wave
Drew Durbin is the co-founder and CEO of Wave Mobile Money, a mobile money company that started in Senegal in 2018. Before Wave, he and Lincoln Quirk founded Sendwave, a remittance app sending money from North America and Europe to Africa and Asia, which WorldRemit agreed to buy in 2020 for up to $500 million.
- Fintech
- Mobile money
Wave
Y Combinator
- Now
- CEO, Wave Mobile Money2
- Founded
- Sendwave (2014), Wave (2018)3
- Y Combinator
- Winter 2012 batch, as YC lists it1
- Education
- Brown University1
Experience
- Co-founder and CEO2018 – now
Wave was piloted in Senegal in 2018, while still part of the Sendwave group, and spun out when Sendwave was sold. It charges nothing to deposit or withdraw and 1% to send money.3
- Co-founder and CEO2014 – 2021
Started with Lincoln Quirk as a low-cost mobile remittance service from the US to Kenya; within six months it was the largest remitter to Kenya.5
- FounderAfter college
Moved to Tanzania after college and started two ventures making handcarts and solar cookers from recycled materials; neither grew to the scale he hoped for.5
Education
Milestones
- Co-founds Sendwave with Lincoln Quirk, fed up with the high fees and hassle of sending money to his NGO in Tanzania6
- Wave is piloted in Senegal3
- WorldRemit agrees to buy Sendwave in a deal worth up to $500 million4
- Sale of Sendwave to WorldRemit completes and Wave becomes its own company5
- Wave raises a $200 million Series A at a $1.7 billion valuation3
- Wave gets an e-money license from the West African central bank (BCEAO), with over 6 million active users in Senegal7
- Wave raises €117 million in debt financing led by Rand Merchant Bank8