Riverwood leads $200m Series D for SE Asia payments player Nium

Vertex Ventures, Atinum Group of Funds, Beacon Venture Capital, Rocket Capital Investment, Temasek Holdings, and Visa also participated, as did angel investors associated with groups including San Francisco-based Tribe Capital and New York-listed food ordering platform DoorDash. It is said to establish Nium as the first B2B payments unicorn in Southeast Asia.

Launched as Instarem in 2014, Nium offers a modular platform that allows banks, payment providers, travel companies, and other businesses to collect and disburse funds in local currencies to more than 100 countries as well as issue physical and virtual cards. This is said to improve cash flow economics by enabling new service launches in weeks rather than months.

The company claims to have grown significantly in the past year, having reached milestones of $8 billion in payments facilitated and 30 million virtual cards issued to date. Payment services span more than 100 countries, and cards are issued in about 40. The company has about 700 employees across 17 countries.

About half of revenue comes from Asia Pacific, with Europe, the Middle East, and Africa making up the other half. The US and Latin America are the target expansion markets. There are also plans to acquire new technologies and companies with a view to achieving double-digit growth. Recent acquisitions include UK-based travel B2B payments player Ixaris and Wirecard Forex India.

“Nium has built an extremely rare global footprint of licensed infrastructure that brings the world closer to global real-time gross settlement,” Alex Porto, a principal at Riverwood, said in a statement. “We believe that Nium is on track to be a central component of the global fabric, providing faster and more democratic money movement, and we look forward to supporting their growth in this next phase.”

Nium describes its total addressable market as a $50 trillion opportunity set. Similar operators in this space include Singapore-based Thunes, which has raised $130 million to date, according to AVCJ Research, including a $60 million round earlier this year.

Thunes positions itself as an Asia, Africa, and Latin America-focused player, with recent activity including partnerships with Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank and Cambodia’s Bank of Asia.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Early-stage
• Singapore
• Vertex Ventures
• Atinum Partners
• Temasek Holdings
• Fintech
• Financial Services