Sequoia leads $17m round for Singapore's Tazapay
Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia has led a USD 16.9m Series A round for Singaporean cross-border payments start-up Tazapay.
Sequoia has been active in Southeast Asia since 2012 but closed its first fund dedicated to the region - on USD 850m - last year. A team of 40, as of the fund closing, invests in the seed through growth stages.
The Series A brings total funding since Tazapay’s inception in 2020 to USD 18.9m, including a commitment from Sequoia’s accelerator programme Surge. A second surge fund closed in 2021 on USD 195m.
Foundamental, January Capital, RTP Global, Saison Capital, EscapeVelocity, and PayPal Alumni Fund also joined the Series A, as did \angel investor Gokul Rajaram. The capital will be used in part for an Asian expansion as well as entries into new markets, including in the Middle East and Europe.
Tazapay provides payments and compliance infrastructure for cross-border commerce and services. Card coverage spans about 170 markets, and there is local payments collection coverage in 85 markets globally.
The idea is to help businesses make secure transactions with reduced costs without having to create local entities wherever their customers are.
The company observes that with the advent of open banking and real-time payment networks, there is an increase in expectations from businesses and consumers for payments to be done in real-time through familiar payment methods.
Clients include B2B marketplace IndiaMART, education platform, BrightCHAMPS, used trucks marketplace WTX, and travel platform Rezlive. Tazapay has also partnered with Standard Chartered to provide commerce-enabling payment services to enterprise marketplaces.
“This is a large space which is seeing another inflection point," Aakash Kapoor, a vice president at Sequoia Southeast Asia, said in a statement.
"Buyers increasingly prefer to use local real-time payments over traditional networks and businesses are keen to expand globally without going through the hassle of a local set-up. The Tazapay team has unique insights and experience to leverage this tailwind.”
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