Arcus

Overview

Arcus began as Regalii, a 2012-era attempt to make remittances safer by turning cash sent home into paid bills and store credit. After Y Combinator's Summer 2013 batch, the team discovered that the more valuable asset was not the consumer experience. It was the network of billers, retailers, banks, and payment connections underneath it.^[1]

That pivot made Arcus an acquisition, not a post-mortem. By 2021, it sold payment infrastructure to banks, fintechs, and retailers across Latin America. Mastercard bought it to accelerate bill pay and real-time payments in the region.^[2] The decisive move was turning the operational mess of local bill pay into a network product. The later outcome also exposes the limits of that strategy: in 2025, Mastercard retained the regulated SPEI capabilities and Arcus brand while Tapi acquired several distribution-heavy Mexican operations.^[3]

Founding Story

Edrizio De La Cruz came to New York from the Dominican Republic and knew the remittance problem as a sender. He had worked as an aircraft mechanic, finished college, worked at J.P. Morgan, and earned an MBA from Wharton before starting Regalii. In an early interview, he described sending money to relatives who then had to collect cash, wait in lines, and visit separate locations to pay bills: “I really felt like I owed them everything, so every time we sent money back, it was a big hassle for them.”^[4]

The first product let a sender buy credits that a relative could redeem at a partner merchant, or pay utilities directly. It charged a $3 transfer fee and used texted PIN codes at stores in the Dominican Republic.^[4] The company reached Y Combinator in precarious shape. De La Cruz later wrote, “Back in April 2013, Regalii (later renamed Arcus) had one month of runway left in the bank.” He also described a founding group with one engineer, four finance-background salespeople, and one designer, a configuration the team had to correct.^[5]

Iñigo Rumayor and Juan Maldonado appear with De La Cruz on YC's current founder roster; Mastercard's acquisition account emphasizes Rumayor and credits Marc Sacal with helping expand the product beyond cross-border payments. Rumayor summarized the origin this way: “Edrizio de la Cruz and I began this company to help immigrants like us have a proper way to track our finances and send money home.”^[2] Public sources do not cleanly resolve every early title. They do agree on the core progression: immigrant remittances led to direct bill payment, direct bill payment required a local integration network, and that network became the company.

Timeline

• 2012–2013: Regalii starts around remittances and bill payment, enters YC S13, and becomes a TechCrunch Disrupt finalist.^[1]
• 2015: The company reports more than $1 million in annual net revenue, about ten-country coverage, and $3 million raised.^[6]
• 2016: Regalii reports 153,000 bill transactions per month, 1,000 billers across 11 countries, and 25 employees.^[7]
• 2018: De La Cruz publicly describes the shift from cross-border remittances to domestic Mexican bill-pay infrastructure.^[8]
• 2021: Forbes reports 85 clients, $19 million raised, and a $75 million valuation; Mastercard announces the acquisition in November.^[9]
• 2022–2024: Mastercard expands Arcus through 7pay and an IFPE license in Mexico.^{[10] [11]}
• 2025: Tapi buys selected Mexican bill-pay, top-up, gift-card, and cash operations. Mastercard keeps Arcus's brand and SPEI capabilities.^[3]

What They Built

Regalii's first interface concealed an awkward truth about remittances: a transfer was often only the beginning of the recipient's work. A sender could instead direct value to groceries or household bills. That improved control and reduced the recipient's need to carry cash, but it required merchant agreements and biller integrations in every market.