- Nium, a well-known online money transfer company, has confirmed that it has received $200m in investment, meaning that it is now the first business-to-business (B2B) unicorn in Southeast Asia.
- The company said that it will use the additional injection of capital to enhance its presence in various verticals around the world, as well as expanding its fintech offering.
- “We believe we can be a global catalyst to increase global commerce, removing some of the payments friction which has traditionally held businesses back,” a senior spokesperson for the firm said.
Online money transfer company Nium has become a business-to-business (B2B) unicorn after reaching a valuation of over $1bn following its latest fundraising round.
The firm gained the status after it raised $200m as part of a Series D funding round.
It is now the first ever international B2B payments unicorn in Southeast Asia.
The fundraising round was led by US-based technology investor Riverwood Capital.
Nium, which is based in Singapore, has a long history in the cross-border payments world.
It was previously known as InstaReM, and currently has a range of top names as investors, including global financial services company Visa.
Additional institutional investors include Temasek, Atinum Group of Funds and Rocket Capital.
A number of individuals have also invested, such as DoorDash executive Gokul Rajaram, and Tribe Capital’s co-founder Arjun Sethi.
To date, the company has raised over US$300m in investment.
The latest funding round, which was assisted by Financial Technology Partners as financial and strategic advisors, will be used to help expand the company’s financial technology service offering.
It will also be used to enhance the firm’s payments infrastructure, and will give impetus to growth in new regions.
On the whole, the company claims to have issued over 30 million virtual cards and processed around $8bn a year in payments.
In terms of revenue, Nium said that it has seen rises of close to 300% year-on-year.
In a statement, the firm’s chief executive officer Prajit Nanu said that the company came into existence with the aim of reducing friction in cross-border payments.
He added that his aim was to boost the flow of international commerce and combat the sort of friction that causes problems for firms.
“We started Nium with the humble goal of taking out regional complexity in cross-border payments. Today, our sights are set higher,” he said.
“We believe we can be a global catalyst to increase global commerce, removing some of the payments friction which has traditionally held businesses back.”
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