Boston-based vertical payments company Flywire was founded in 2011 to help international students pay for their education. "The initial goal was to assist universities like MIT, for example, in receiving tuition payments from markets all over the world," says Ryan Frere, the company's executive vice president of global payments. "Before Flywire existed, that was really challenging. What we've been able to do is streamline the cross-border payment process from the receiver's perspective."

Over the ensuing decade, Flywire's business has expanded beyond higher ed to support the healthcare and travel industries as well. Geographically, the company now serves clients and their customers across 220 countries and 150 currencies around the world, and has processed over $12 billion in both cross-border and domestic transactions. Still, its primary objective remains the same: "We work on behalf of our clients to make sure that their payers don't run into challenges with some of life's most important payments," Frere says.