Singapore, Thailand blockchain remittance player gets $50m
Singapore and Thailand-based Lightnet, a blockchain-enabled payments and remittance services provider, has raised USD 50m from US-based LDA Capital.
Light said that it will have the option to increase the commitment to up to USD 100m over the next three years but did not provide further detail on terms.
The investment follows a USD 31.2m Series A in 2020 featuring UOB Venture Management, Seven Bank, Uni-President Asset Holdings, Hashkey Capital, Hopeshine Ventures, Signum Capital, Du Capital, and Hanwha Investment & Securities.
Lightnet describes its cross-border remittance infrastructure for underbanked Asia as revolutionary. It leverages a close partnership with US-based Velo Labs, said to be the first, real-time blockchain settlement service for remittance and payments between money transfer operations and banking institutions under regulatory supervision and support.
The plan is to pilot programs that enable remittance backed by distributed ledger technology through multiple channels including the use of stablecoins, bypassing traditional SWIFT settlement processes and thus reducing the need for high costs of pre-funding in cross-border payment flows.
“This investment will allow us to grow and expand our infrastructure, which partners can participate in and grow business solutions,” Lightnet founder and CEO Tridbodi Arunanondchai said in a statement. “Our unique architecture makes the solution accessible and attainable for anyone to adopt the service.”
Cross-border payments and related B2B financial services is an attractive VC niche in Southeast Asia. Recent activity includes a USD 60m Series B for Thunes, a USD 200m Series D for Nium, and a USD 29m Series A for Volopay. All three companies are based in Singapore.
Nium, which has also begun experimenting with blockchain in partnership with US-based industry major Ripple, marks its total addressable market as worth USD 50trn. Thunes estimates Asia, Africa, and Latin America alone see USD 45trn of cross-border transactions a year.
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