Singapore's Jubilee Capital in $3m round for NZ fintech start-up
Latitude Technologies (Latipay), a New Zealand-based financial technology company that helps e-commerce players target Chinese consumers, has raised NZ$4.1 million ($3 million) from a group of investors including Singapore’s Jubilee Capital.
According to AVCJ Research, other participants include New Zealand individual investors and Auckland-based investment firm Tuhua Ventures. Zino Ventures, which claims to be New Zealand’s first China-focused angel fund manager, also contributed.
The capital will be used to hire new IT staff and scale up the business’ current footprint across New Zealand and Australia. Expansion efforts will also be pursued in Singapore and the US.
“We are a global business, focused on the global market and in the next couple of years we will be on par with PayPal, Stripe and Square,” Leigh Flounders, CEO of Latipay, said in a statement. “It’s about scale and market dominance in the global sphere.”
Founded in 2015, Latipay offers technology that allows consumers to make online purchases from foreign sellers in their local currency. The business model has a significant focus on companies targeting China, where most consumers do not have credit cards and many foreign transactions involve time-consuming and expensive currency exchange, bank-to-bank transactions or wire transfers.
The company leverages partnerships with 19 Chinese banks and claims to be the only payment platform in the world working with the four main Chinese e-wallets: Alipay, WeChat, JD Pay and Baidu. Services do not require merchants to pay a fee, and most transactions can be completed in two business days.
Jubilee invested via its Jubilee Tech Fund, which reached a first close of $30 million in November and is targeting $100 million. The GP maintains bases in Beijing and Auckland, and is oriented largely toward Chinese opportunities.
Tuhua closed a technology fund last year at NZ$10 million, with an aim to back about 25 New Zealand start-ups across the next three years. It is partnered with domestic early-stage investors Icehouse and ICE Angels.
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