Introducing the New Rapyd Brand

Last week we introduced a new brand at Rapyd. We have been working on this for several months and I am really happy with the result. Building a brand is a challenging and complex process. So much thinking, trial and error, and ultimately picking a direction goes into creating a successful brand. Yet, most people don't really understand what a brand is. It's more than a logo, actually, much more. The value in a strong brand is the ability for it to get an audience to want to take a closer look at what a company does. So, a brand isn't just a logo, although that's part of it.

In our case, the process of creating the Rapyd brand wasn’t straightforward. We actually started out with what we thought was a good direction, aided by a well-known agency. We went through a formalized process, outlined a brand direction document, and captured key elements that define the Rapyd business and culture. Some of those elements include being bold by building something that changes the face of payments and commerce at a global scale, a feeling that no matter what the challenge is we can get it done at Rapyd for our clients (we can, and do), and that we are a team on a mission to bring financial inclusion to the 4 Billion+ consumers in the world that want to participate in global commerce at a very local level.

As is the case in any startup, nothing is a straight line, and that was really true for this project. Our initial concept, while really intriguing, just didn’t fit.

With time pressing, we shifted gears and decided to bring the effort completely in-house from a creative direction, pivoting the project. And, I think it paid off. As I stated, often times a brand is thought of only as a logo. We came up with a new logo initially, but not everyone loved it - notably my CEO, Arik Shtilman and Rapyd co-founder Omer Priel.

I told them “don’t settle” when it comes to creating this and they didn’t.

Arik and Omer pushed for more. So, we went back to the drawing board, ordered pizzas over a 48-hour never-stop-working period and looked at over 1200 designs. And we came up with a new logo that we love: bold, forward-thinking, and flexible.

Our new brand reflects what Rapyd is - a different type of thinking, execution, and approach to harmonizing local payments infrastructure on a global scale.

The Rapyd brand seeks to communicate a vision through the stark contrast of humanized imagery, bold colorization, iconography, visual textures, the words we use to describe ourselves, our world-class platform and our global go-to-market approach (the new site is in 6 languages and we are adding more) all play a part in defining the brand. Our new website encapsulates a new global approach that defines the Rapyd brand.

It’s really exciting to be the CMO at Rapyd and be able to define the new brand vision for this amazing company.

However, this would simply not have been possible with some very important people I am very lucky to work with.

My brand “partners in crime” Rona Susel (EMEA Marketing Director at Rapyd) and Irina Chuchkina (APAC Marketing Director at Rapyd) had a major role in helping to define the visual identity. The brains of our product positioning come from Brendan Miller (Global Head of Product Marketing at Rapyd) and we were fortunate that Kristin Reischel, a recent addition to the global product marketing team was able to step up and provide additional insight and support to the project. Our website was developed by Atre.net and led by Shawn Click, they’re VP of Creative. Shawn and his team did an amazing job helping us formulate the brand concept into the visual representation you see on the new website.

And, of course, none of this would have happened without the support of our world-class investors including Oak HC/FT, Tiger Global, Coutue, Entrée Capital, Target Global, IGNIA, TaL Capital and others as we recently announced our Series C funding round.

Have a look at the new Rapyd and let us know what you think!

Marc