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Trolley has raised $29.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Key people at Trolley.
Trolley has raised $29.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Trolley provides an end-to-end payout platform designed for the internet economy, enabling businesses to manage and automate global payments and compliance. The company offers a comprehensive solution that includes tools for global payouts, tax compliance across various jurisdictions like IRS, DAC7, and OECD, and robust developer resources such as APIs, SDKs, and widgets. Its capabilities streamline recipient onboarding, payout automation, and risk and fraud management.
The company, originally known as Payment Rails, was founded in 2015 with Tim Nixon as CEO. The foundational insight stemmed from the complex and fragmented nature of processing global payouts and ensuring regulatory compliance for businesses operating in the digital sphere. This led to the development of a unified platform to simplify these critical financial operations.
Trolley serves a diverse client base, including platforms in music and streaming, freelance marketplaces, ad networks, and e-commerce. It caters to finance, accounts payable, risk, compliance, product, engineering, operations, and support teams. The company’s vision is to empower businesses with efficient, compliant, and secure payout infrastructure, facilitating seamless global transactions for a wide range of digital economy participants.
Key people at Trolley.
# High-Level Overview
Trolley is a cloud-based payouts platform that enables businesses to send fast payments globally to individuals and companies in any currency across all primary payment methods.[2] Founded in 2015 as Payment Rails and rebranded to Trolley, the company solves a fundamental problem facing internet-era businesses: automating and managing financial transactions at scale across borders.[2] The platform serves the creator economy, gig marketplaces, influencer networks, music streaming platforms, and freelancer marketplaces by providing end-to-end payout automation—from recipient onboarding and tax compliance to payment delivery and fraud management.[1][3]
Trolley's mission is to "unlock the collective economic opportunity of the internet" by building a truly global payouts ecosystem that enables businesses to reach workers worldwide while offering creators, on-demand workers, and suppliers access to global markets.[2] The company operates as a fintech infrastructure provider, positioning itself as essential middleware for any platform that needs to distribute payments at scale. With approximately 25 employees and headquarters in Toronto, Canada, Trolley has expanded to include offices in San Francisco and Vilnius, Lithuania, reflecting its global ambitions.[3]
# Origin Story
Trolley was founded in 2015 as Payment Rails, emerging from the recognition that businesses universally struggle with sending payments—a problem that became increasingly acute as the internet economy expanded.[2] The company's founding team, led by CEO and Founder Tim Nixon, recognized that existing payment infrastructure was fragmented and cumbersome for businesses operating across borders.[2] The rebranding from Payment Rails to Trolley represented a strategic evolution, signaling the company's expansion beyond simple payment routing to a comprehensive payouts ecosystem.
The company is backed by experienced investors in payments and the creator economy, including Pace Capital (Chris Paik), Wavecrest Growth Partners (Vaibhav Nalwaya and Anthony Giannobile), and GreenSky Ventures (Neil Peet).[2] This investor composition reflects Trolley's positioning at the intersection of payments infrastructure and creator economy growth—two of the most dynamic segments in fintech over the past decade.
# Core Differentiators
# Role in the Broader Tech Landscape
Trolley operates at the intersection of three powerful trends reshaping the economy. First, the rise of the creator and gig economy has created unprecedented demand for efficient, global payment infrastructure—traditional banking systems were never designed to handle thousands of micro-payments across borders at the speed and scale required by modern platforms.[1][2] Second, regulatory complexity around global payments and tax reporting has intensified, particularly with initiatives like the EU's DAC7 directive, creating a moat for platforms that can navigate these requirements at scale.[3] Third, the shift toward API-first infrastructure means that fintech solutions increasingly compete on developer experience and integration simplicity rather than feature breadth alone.[4]
Trolley's timing is particularly advantageous because the infrastructure gap it addresses has only widened as platforms scale. Marketplaces, streaming services, and creator platforms that once managed payments manually or through fragile integrations now require enterprise-grade automation to remain competitive. By positioning itself as the payouts layer for the internet economy, Trolley influences how value flows through digital platforms—a foundational role that creates network effects as more platforms standardize on its infrastructure.
# Quick Take & Future Outlook
Trolley is well-positioned to capture significant market share in the payouts infrastructure category as businesses increasingly prioritize operational efficiency and regulatory compliance. The company's expansion into enterprise-grade solutions (Trolley Plus) and specialized tax compliance tools suggests a strategy to move upmarket while maintaining developer accessibility—a challenging but high-value positioning.[3] Future growth will likely depend on deepening integrations with major platforms, expanding geographic coverage, and staying ahead of evolving regulatory requirements across key markets.
The broader trend working in Trolley's favor is the continued fragmentation and globalization of work. As more businesses operate across borders and employ distributed teams, the demand for reliable, compliant payout infrastructure will only intensify. Trolley's ability to abstract away the complexity of global payments—turning a painful, manual process into a streamlined API call—makes it a critical piece of infrastructure for the next generation of internet-native businesses.
Trolley has raised $29.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $23.0M Series B in November 2024.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 1, 2024 | $23M Series B | Vaibhav Nalwaya | Pace Capital | Announced |
| Dec 1, 2021 | $6M Series A | Pace Capital | — | Announced |
Trolley has raised $29.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Trolley's investors include Vaibhav Nalwaya, Pace Capital.
