By Ran Grushkowsky, CEO
I’ve always been drawn to broken systems.
At 16, as a DJ and EDM obsessive, I saw how outdated music distribution hurt artists - slow payments, unnecessary middlemen, zero control. Artists were creating value in real time, but the system paying them was stuck in the past. So I built a digital music-sharing and distribution platform to fix it. Not because I thought of it as “fintech,” but because the system no longer matched the world it served.
That instinct - to spot friction and rebuild around it - never left.
In college, I found myself pulled deeper into payments, co-founding what became one of the first compliant online remittance companies in the U.S. We were shipping reloadable prepaid cards globally with Mastercard long before “fintech” was a mainstream term. It was my first real exposure to how complex, slow, and fragile global money movement actually was - and how much work it took just to make it function.
Over the years, I moved between building and operating companies - helping launch a consumer marketplace company that made it into Y Combinator, then returning to fintech leadership roles that ultimately ended in a nine-figure acquisition. By the time that chapter closed, I had financial independence. What I didn’t have was any interest in retiring - or building something just to build it.
Then I saw the problem again - this time at a massive scale.
Today’s digital marketplaces are fast, global, and always on. But the way they pay people is not. Even well-run fintech companies can spend a year standing up new correspondent banking rails just to pay partners in a new country. And that problem is getting worse - not better - as payment rails fragment (Venmo here, Zelle there) and more people earn income online than ever before.
The people getting paid - creators, gig workers, affiliates, partners - often wait days or weeks for money they’ve already earned. That delay erodes trust, kills engagement, and ultimately slows growth. Who wants to work with a company that can’t pay them on time, where they are?
That gap isn’t just inefficient. It’s human.
When we first started MassPay, we underestimated just how broken payouts really were. The existing systems were stone-age - too many employees, too much manual work, too much friction. And the result was always the same: people not getting paid when they should.
We built MassPay to fix that.
We designed payout infrastructure that prioritizes speed, validation, and choice - charging companies only when payouts actually succeed. No incentives to hold funds. No reliance on outdated correspondent banking models. Just infrastructure that works the way modern businesses and modern workers do.
Because if you pay people with goats, they’ll take goats. That doesn’t mean they want to be paid in goats.
The digital economy deserves payout infrastructure that matches how people actually live and work today.
For businesses, fast and reliable payouts aren’t just operational hygiene - they’re a competitive advantage, even a profit center. For the people they pay, it’s about dignity, control, and trust.
MassPay was built to live at that intersection: helping companies scale globally while making sure the people behind that growth get paid securely, on time, and the way they choose. Our motto is simple: We care about your people getting paid - anywhere.
Broken systems don’t fix themselves. Someone has to rebuild them. That challenge has always been more exciting to me than making money - though that part doesn’t hurt.
In 2026, we’re excited to prove why that’s never been more important - for businesses, for workers, and for the global economy they power.
So let me ask: What could your business achieve if you never had to worry about payouts again?
We’d love to help you find out.
Oh, and if you’re curious about the photo above, it’s simple. MassPay is the Rolls-Royce of global payment platforms. So we decorated the office accordingly.