Frex: Full-Stack Due Diligence on a Fintech Remittance Bet

Tanmay picked up the Frex brief at ZeroPearl with a lean team and no dedicated research support. Frex was a fintech startup solving cross-border remittance for NRIs by routing dollar transfers through stablecoin rails via Singapore, reducing both conversion costs and tax drag for senders. The thesis was interesting, but the question was whether the unit economics and founder-market fit held up under scrutiny.

He started with the founders. He interviewed the founding team directly, probing their go-to-market strategy, customer acquisition approach, and how they were navigating the regulatory landscape across the US, Singapore, and India. He then moved to the customer side, speaking with actual users to understand why they were choosing Frex over incumbent channels and whether the retention was genuine or trial-driven.

He also spoke with competitors to map the edges Frex held and where it was exposed. He tracked CAC, retention rates, and P&L structure, and assessed the business's ability to scale beyond the NRI-to-India corridor into other remittance markets.

The full IC memo covered founder background and problem framing, go-to-market traction, competitive positioning, market size and CAGR, SWOT analysis, financial due diligence including money in bank and prior investors, and Tanmay's own investability assessment scored out of four. ZeroPearl invested in Frex, and the startup has continued to grow since.