Founders Co-Op led the investment round, which was joined by Schmidt's TomorrowVentures vehicle and Bezos Expeditions, the Amazon CEO's company, which also seed-funded Beamit to the tune of $750,000 in convertible debt back in November.

Beamit was founded by Matt Oppenheimer last year following a stint as head of mobile and Internet banking for Barclays Bank in Kenya. He's now looking to tap into a remittance market estimated to be worth $374 billion a year by the World Bank.

The company has developed an app that lets users transfer money across borders with the click of a button. The technology is currently being trialled between the US and Philippines and a public launch is slated for the third quarter.

Chris Devore from Founders Co-Op told Dow Jones that the new money will be spent on engineers, developing the product and "knocking down regulatory barriers".