Boston-based vertical payments company Flywire was founded in2011 to help international students pay for their education. "Theinitial goal was to assist universities like MIT, for example, inreceiving tuition payments from markets all over the world," saysRyan Frere, the company's executive vice president of globalpayments. "Before Flywire existed, that was really challenging.What we've been able to do is streamline the cross-border paymentprocess from the receiver's perspective."

Over the ensuing decade, Flywire's business has expanded beyondhigher ed to support the healthcare and travel industries as well.Geographically, the company now serves clients and their customersacross 220 countries and 150 currencies around the world, and hasprocessed over $12 billion in both cross-border and domestictransactions. Still, its primary objective remains the same: "Wework on behalf of our clients to make sure that their payers don'trun into challenges with some of life's most important payments,"Frere says.