Southeast Asia payments provider 2C2P gets Series C round

The company, which previously received around $1 million from Digital Media Partners in 2011 and $2 million from GMO in 2014, has now raised more than $10 million to date. It will use the latest round to drive expansion across Southeast Asia, develop new products and recruit additional staff.

Founded in 2003, 2C2P provides payment services to financial institutions and retailers, facilitating e-commerce transactions in markets where consumers want to spend money on products and services but there is insufficient financial infrastructure to enable this demand. In the 2014 financial year, the company processed transactions worth $2.2 billion, up 400% on the previous 12 months.

2C2P has offices in eight Southeast Asian countries and Hong Kong. The company has identified Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia as its priority markets.

Between 2013 and 2018, the value of B2C e-commerce in Southeast Asia's six largest markets will grow from $7 billion to $34.5 billion, according to Frost & Sullivan. Mobile penetration tops 90% in some of these jurisdictions, and 2C2P wants to provide a complementary payment infrastructure.

On a product level, the company plans to deepen its capabilities in card, cash and cash equivalent acceptance services, issue physical and virtual co-branded debit and prepaid cards with partner banks and retailers, and expand payment services for financial institutions.

In the last year, 2C2P has expanded its presence in Myanmar, introducing the country's first mobile-based point-of-sale payment solution, issued prepaid cards that link to a mobile app, and launched the first e-commerce payment platform in partnership with Myanmar Payments Union.

In Thailand it has teamed up with MasterCard to create a system that allows cardholders to pay bills via mobile device or computer, and provided payment solutions for the country's largest retail chain and national airline.

"Investment from Amun and GMO signals the attractiveness of our business and allows us to invest in our growth. We foresee 2015 strong growth in our revenues, something we have consistently been achieving for the last four years," added Aung Kyaw Moe, founder and CEO of 2C2P.

A number of payments providers in Southeast Asia have won backing from VC players. Golden Gate Ventures joined a number of Japanese players in a $1.8 million follow-on investment in Philippines-based Ayannah last October, taking the total raised by the start-up to nearly $7 million. Golden Gate has also backed Indonesia-based Coda Payments, with participation from GMO and other Japanese investors.

The two companies have very different origins, indicating the variety of ways into the space. While Coda leverage telecom providers' existing infrastructure to provide billing services for third-party merchants, Ayannah built up a distribution network for mobile phone charge cards and then branched out into micro-insurance and remittances.

Amun is an investment firm that focuses on fast-growing sectors in Asia, the Middle East, and Russia and the former Soviet states. GMO Venture Partners is an investment unit of GMO Payment Gateway, operating in Japan and Southeast Asia.

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