Arik Shtilman – Co-Founder & CEO of Rapyd

Arik Shtilman – Co-Founder & CEO of Rapyd

Arik Shtilman is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rapyd, a global fintech infrastructure company that helps businesses accept payments, send payouts, manage funds, issue cards, and operate across international markets.

Since co-founding Rapyd, Shtilman has led the company from an early-stage payments startup into a global financial technology platform serving businesses across more than 100 countries. Rapyd's infrastructure supports more than 1,200 payment methods and operates across a large network of regulated markets.

Shtilman's career has been shaped by a consistent focus on simplifying complicated technology infrastructure. Before Rapyd, he founded ITNavigator, a cloud-based contact-center and unified-communications company that was acquired by Avaya in 2013. He later applied that experience to financial technology, helping build Rapyd around the idea that companies should be able to access local financial infrastructure without having to build separate systems in every country.

Today, Shtilman is leading Rapyd through another major transition. Artificial intelligence, stablecoins, cross-border payments, embedded finance, and global payment infrastructure are becoming increasingly central to the company's strategy.

Who Is Arik Shtilman?

Arik Shtilman is an Israeli technology entrepreneur and fintech executive best known as the Co-Founder and CEO of Rapyd.

Rapyd describes itself as a global fintech platform that allows businesses to accept, send, and manage money internationally through a single infrastructure layer. Its products include online and in-store payments, payouts, card issuing, multi-currency accounts, and stablecoin payment solutions.

Shtilman has spent much of his career building infrastructure rather than consumer-facing applications.

His first major company, ITNavigator, focused on cloud communications. After its acquisition by Avaya, he moved into fintech and eventually co-founded Rapyd.

That background is important to understanding his approach to Rapyd.

Instead of attempting to create another consumer payments brand, Shtilman built a business designed to sit underneath other companies' products and services.

The result is a Fintech-as-a-Service model in which businesses can integrate payment and financial capabilities through APIs and a global network of local infrastructure.

Early Life, Military Service and Education

Shtilman's professional journey began in Israel.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, he completed Israel's mandatory military service. In interviews, he has described his decision to move directly into technology entrepreneurship after his military service rather than following a conventional academic path.

Later biographical sources identify Shtilman as holding a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, now known as Reichman University.

His technical education became an important foundation for his entrepreneurial career.

Rather than approaching technology primarily from a financial or managerial perspective, Shtilman developed his career around software infrastructure, cloud computing, APIs, and enterprise technology.

Founding ITNavigator

Before Rapyd, Shtilman co-founded ITNavigator, a cloud-based contact-center and unified-communications company.

The company focused on helping businesses operate communications infrastructure through cloud technology at a time when many enterprise communications systems were still heavily dependent on on-premise infrastructure.

ITNavigator was eventually acquired by Avaya in 2013.

The acquisition was an important milestone in Shtilman's career.

It gave him experience building a technology company, scaling an enterprise product, working with larger organizations, and navigating an acquisition.

It also established the broader pattern that would define his later career: finding a complicated piece of enterprise infrastructure and making it accessible through software.

The Idea Behind Rapyd

Shtilman co-founded Rapyd with Omer Priel and Arkady Karpman.

The company was initially founded around the challenge of moving money between countries and accessing fragmented local payment systems. Rapyd's official history describes the company's origin as a response to a major problem in global commerce: businesses could not easily access the different payment methods and financial infrastructure required to operate internationally.

The problem was substantial.

A company expanding internationally could encounter different:

• Payment methods

• Banking systems

• Financial regulations

• Currency requirements

• Settlement processes

• Card networks

• Licensing requirements

• Fraud controls

Building relationships with all of those systems independently could require significant time, money, and technical resources.

Rapyd's approach was to create a unified infrastructure layer.

Instead of requiring a company to integrate separately with dozens or hundreds of financial providers, Rapyd could provide access through one technology platform.

Shtilman has described this as building the infrastructure necessary to make global commerce feel more local.

From Payments Startup to Fintech-as-a-Service

Rapyd evolved beyond basic payment processing.

The company built a broader infrastructure platform covering payment acceptance, payouts, banking services, card issuing, foreign exchange, fraud protection, and other financial capabilities.

The company describes its mission as providing businesses with the tools required to build payment and financial experiences across markets.

This is where Shtilman's previous experience with enterprise software became particularly relevant.

Rapyd does not primarily compete for consumer attention.

Instead, its customers can embed Rapyd's infrastructure inside their own applications, marketplaces, platforms, and financial products.

The model resembles the infrastructure approach used by other API-driven technology companies: build complex infrastructure once and allow thousands of businesses to access it through software.

Rapyd's Global Expansion

Shtilman has pursued international expansion aggressively.

Rapyd expanded through both organic growth and acquisitions, adding payment capabilities and licenses across multiple regions.

One of its largest transactions was the acquisition of PayU's Global Payment Organisation for $610 million.

The acquisition was announced in 2023 and completed in March 2025 after regulatory approvals. The transaction covered PayU's payment operations in Latin America and Africa, excluding PayU's businesses in India, Turkey, and Southeast Asia.

The acquisition substantially expanded Rapyd's geographic footprint.

Following the transaction, Rapyd said the combined business could support transactions across more than 100 countries and more than 1,200 payment methods, with operations and licenses across numerous regulated jurisdictions.

The company also reported more than 250,000 merchant clients and approximately 1,700 employees across 22 offices at the time the acquisition was announced.

For Shtilman, the PayU transaction represented more than a conventional acquisition.

It was part of a strategy to assemble a global payments network through a combination of technology, licenses, local market knowledge, and existing merchant relationships.

Rapyd's Funding and Valuation

Rapyd has attracted substantial venture investment during its expansion.

In August 2021, the company announced a $300 million Series E round at a $10 billion valuation.

By March 2022, secondary transactions reportedly valued Rapyd at approximately $15 billion, making it one of the most highly valued private technology companies in Israel at that time. Calcalist reported that Rapyd had raised approximately $960 million in total by then.

The private-market environment subsequently changed considerably.

In March 2025, Rapyd raised approximately $500 million at a reported $4.5 billion valuation as it completed the financing required for the PayU transaction.

The change illustrates the broader reset in fintech valuations after the peak of the 2021–2022 technology market.

Rather than simply pursuing a higher valuation, Rapyd's strategy during this period focused on scale, profitability, acquisitions, and building a global payments infrastructure business.

The PayU Acquisition

The PayU acquisition became one of the defining moments of Shtilman's leadership.

Rapyd agreed to purchase PayU GPO for $610 million in 2023. The transaction expanded Rapyd's capabilities across Latin America and Africa and strengthened its acquiring infrastructure.

The acquisition was completed on March 14, 2025.

Rapyd said the deal expanded its card-acquiring capabilities into six Latin American markets—including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Peru—and expanded its presence into Nigeria and South Africa.

The transaction also increased Rapyd's ability to provide businesses with a unified global payments network.

For Shtilman, this represents a recurring theme in his strategy: rather than entering every market from scratch, Rapyd can acquire local capabilities and connect them to a broader technology platform.

Profitability and the Path Toward an IPO

Shtilman has also placed significant emphasis on profitability.

In a 2024 interview, he said Rapyd had moved into profitability and discussed the company's plans to automate a substantial portion of its back-office operations using AI. He also said the company was targeting a potential public listing.

The company's strategy reflects a broader shift in fintech.

During the earlier fintech boom, many companies prioritized rapid growth and market share.

Shtilman's more recent approach has emphasized combining growth with operational efficiency.

That means using acquisitions to expand capabilities, while simultaneously using technology and automation to improve margins.

Artificial Intelligence and Rapyd

AI has become a central part of Shtilman's vision for Rapyd.

He has argued that AI should not simply be treated as another feature within a fintech product.

Instead, he sees AI as a technology that can change how financial companies operate internally.

At Rapyd, this includes automating back-office processes, improving fraud detection, optimizing operations, and reducing the amount of manual work required to operate a global financial network.

Shtilman has publicly argued that companies that do not become AI-first in payments will face increasing pressure as the technology changes how financial infrastructure is built and operated. His current public commentary also links AI with the evolution of stablecoins and cross-border payments.

The strategy is particularly relevant for Rapyd because payments involve enormous numbers of transactions, regulatory processes, customer interactions, fraud decisions, and operational workflows.

AI can potentially affect many of those layers simultaneously.

Stablecoins and the Future of Cross-Border Payments

Stablecoins have become another major component of Shtilman's current strategy.

In September 2025, Rapyd launched Stablecoin Payment Solutions, allowing businesses to accept stablecoins, settle in stablecoins, and make stablecoin payouts through the company's infrastructure.

The goal is to integrate digital assets into conventional payment infrastructure rather than treating crypto payments as an entirely separate financial system.

For example, a business could accept a stablecoin from a customer, convert it into its preferred fiat currency, or use stablecoins for international settlement and payouts.

Rapyd's platform is designed to provide those capabilities through one infrastructure layer.

Shtilman has described the role of Rapyd as bridging digital assets and conventional business payments.

This is consistent with the company's broader strategy.

Rather than betting exclusively on fiat or crypto, Rapyd is attempting to build infrastructure that can connect multiple forms of money movement.

Rapyd's AI-First Payments Strategy

Shtilman's current vision increasingly combines three technologies:

1. Global payment infrastructure

2. Artificial intelligence

3. Stablecoins and digital assets

Each addresses a different part of the global payments problem.

Global infrastructure provides reach.

Stablecoins can provide alternative settlement rails and potentially faster movement of funds.

AI can automate the increasingly complex operational layer surrounding financial transactions.

Together, they could change how businesses manage cross-border commerce.

Shtilman's recent public discussions emphasize this convergence. He has described stablecoins as a major development in liquidity and working capital while arguing that AI is becoming foundational to the operating model of financial companies.

Building a Global Payments Network

One of Shtilman's defining strategic ideas is that payments infrastructure becomes more valuable as more markets and payment methods are connected.

Rapyd's network therefore depends on breadth.

The company has built relationships with local payment providers, banks, card networks, regulators, and financial institutions.

Its platform then exposes those capabilities to businesses through technology.

The result is effectively a network layer between companies and fragmented financial systems.

This can be particularly valuable for businesses such as:

• Marketplaces

• E-commerce companies

• Travel platforms

• Gaming businesses

• Creator platforms

• Financial technology companies

• Online trading platforms

• Global software companies

These businesses often need to collect and distribute money across multiple jurisdictions.

Rapyd's role is to make that infrastructure easier to access.

Shtilman's Leadership Philosophy

Shtilman's leadership philosophy appears strongly influenced by his experience as a repeat entrepreneur.

His career has involved building companies from the ground up, selling a company to a major enterprise technology provider, scaling Rapyd across international markets, and executing large acquisitions.

In his public discussions about entrepreneurship, he has emphasized making bold decisions while maintaining a clear understanding of the underlying business problem. Rapyd has also published his discussion of its unconventional founding story and approach to major strategic decisions.

His leadership at Rapyd has been characterized by an emphasis on:

• International expansion

• Technical infrastructure

• Acquisitions

• Operational efficiency

• Customer relationships

• Automation

• Financial discipline

• Long-term platform development

This combination has allowed Rapyd to evolve from a payments startup into a broader fintech infrastructure company.

Challenges Facing Arik Shtilman

Despite Rapyd's scale, Shtilman faces several major challenges.

Global Regulation

Payments are among the most heavily regulated areas of technology.

Rapyd operates across numerous jurisdictions, each with different requirements around licensing, anti-money-laundering procedures, data protection, payments, and digital assets.

The PayU acquisition itself required regulatory approvals across multiple countries.

Maintaining regulatory compliance while expanding globally is therefore a permanent operational challenge.

Competition

Rapyd operates in a market that includes major global payment and financial infrastructure companies.

Competitors and adjacent providers include businesses such as Stripe, Adyen, Checkout.com, Airwallex, and numerous regional payment processors.

The challenge is not simply offering more payment methods.

Rapyd needs to provide enough geographic coverage, reliability, compliance infrastructure, pricing, and technology integration to remain valuable to global businesses.

Integrating Acquisitions

Large acquisitions create significant integration challenges.

The PayU transaction expanded Rapyd's reach and capabilities, but combining teams, technology, licenses, customers, and operational systems across different countries is complex.

Shtilman's ability to integrate acquired businesses while maintaining a unified technology platform will remain important to Rapyd's next phase.

AI Execution

AI creates significant opportunities but also introduces execution risks.

Automating financial operations requires extremely high levels of accuracy, security, governance, and reliability.

The more financial processes become automated, the more important it becomes to ensure that AI systems operate within appropriate controls.

Stablecoin Regulation

Stablecoins are developing quickly, but regulatory frameworks differ across jurisdictions.

Rapyd therefore has to balance demand for digital-asset payment infrastructure with compliance requirements.

The company's stablecoin products currently rely on partnerships with regulated third-party providers, and Rapyd states that it does not itself issue, custody, or directly process crypto assets.

Arik Shtilman's Vision for the Future

Shtilman's long-term vision extends beyond conventional payment processing.

He sees financial infrastructure becoming increasingly programmable.

Businesses will increasingly expect to integrate payments, accounts, payouts, cards, foreign exchange, fraud controls, and digital-asset settlement directly into their applications.

At the same time, AI could automate much of the operational work required to manage those financial systems.

This could make financial infrastructure increasingly invisible to end users.

A customer may never know which payment processor or financial infrastructure provider handled a transaction.

The business, however, depends heavily on that infrastructure functioning correctly.

That is the market Rapyd is attempting to occupy.

Why Arik Shtilman Matters

Arik Shtilman's significance in fintech comes from his long-term focus on infrastructure rather than consumer-facing financial products.

His first major company, ITNavigator, addressed cloud communications infrastructure.

Rapyd applies a similar philosophy to financial services.

The company's goal is to make complex infrastructure accessible through software and APIs.

Over the past decade, Shtilman has helped transform that concept into a global fintech business with hundreds of thousands of merchants, operations across numerous markets, more than 1,200 payment methods, and major institutional customers. Rapyd's 2023 announcement listed companies including Adidas, Google, IKEA, Meta, Netflix, and Uber among its enterprise clients.

His next challenge is broader still.

The combination of AI, stablecoins, embedded finance, and global payments could fundamentally change the architecture of financial services.

Shtilman is positioning Rapyd to operate at the center of that transition.

Key Facts About Arik Shtilman

Category	Details
Full Name	Arik Shtilman
Current Role	Co-Founder & CEO
Company	Rapyd
Industry	Fintech, Payments, Financial Infrastructure
Rapyd Founded	2015
Previous Company	ITNavigator
ITNavigator Exit	Acquired by Avaya in 2013
Education	Bachelor's degree in Computer Science
University	Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (now Reichman University)
Major Acquisition	PayU GPO
PayU Acquisition Value	$610 million
PayU Deal Completed	March 14, 2025
Reported 2022 Peak Valuation	Approximately $15 billion
Reported 2025 Valuation	Approximately $4.5 billion
2025 Funding	Approximately $500 million
Global Coverage	100+ countries
Payment Methods	1,200+
Current Strategic Focus	AI, global payments, stablecoins, fintech infrastructure
Net Worth	Not publicly disclosed

The valuation figures represent reported private-market valuations at different points in time and should not be interpreted as a current public-market valuation.

Summary

Arik Shtilman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rapyd, a global fintech infrastructure company building the technology layer behind international payments and financial services.

Shtilman's entrepreneurial career began with ITNavigator, a cloud communications company acquired by Avaya in 2013. He later co-founded Rapyd around the idea that businesses should be able to access global financial infrastructure through a unified technology platform.

Under Shtilman's leadership, Rapyd expanded from payments into a broader Fintech-as-a-Service platform covering payment acceptance, payouts, card issuing, multi-currency accounts, and other financial infrastructure.

The company's expansion has included significant acquisitions, most notably the $610 million acquisition of PayU's Global Payment Organisation, completed in March 2025.

Rapyd's private valuation reached approximately $15 billion in 2022, before falling to a reported approximately $4.5 billion valuation in a 2025 financing round.

Today, Shtilman's strategy is increasingly focused on the convergence of AI, stablecoins, and global payment infrastructure.

Rapyd launched stablecoin payment solutions in 2025, allowing businesses to accept stablecoins, settle in stablecoins, and make payouts using stablecoin rails.

At the same time, Shtilman is pushing AI deeper into Rapyd's operating model, with the aim of automating financial operations and improving efficiency across the company's global infrastructure.

His career therefore represents a progression from cloud communications to fintech infrastructure and now toward AI-powered global financial networks.

Arik Shtilman is a CEO to watch at the intersection of fintech, cross-border payments, stablecoins, and artificial intelligence.