Payments infrastructure startup Xendit has become a Southeast Asian unicorn, securing $150 million Series C funding, after its Philippines launch last year.
Tiger Global Management led the round and existing investors - Accel, Amasia, and Justin Kan’s Goat Capital, also participated.
This latest investment will enable Xendit to continue innovating its product suite and make its digital payments infrastructure available to more entrepreneurs in the country as well as in other key regional markets.
“We’re seeing an incredible shift to digital-first," observed Moses Lo, Xendit co-founder and CEO.
"Whether the business is a small Instagram shop or Southeast Asia’s largest enterprises, it’s now clear that businesses need to have a digital presence,” he pointed out.
“Xendit’s digital payments infrastructure enables the region’s new class of entrepreneurs to start and scale their payments faster and supercharges larger companies with modern, world-class financial services," Lo added.
Last year alone, the Philippines and Indonesia registered more than 200% year-over-year increase in total payments volume, maintaining a 25% month-over-month growth rate in the Philippines and continuing a track record of more than 10 percent month-over-month growth since inception.
“Xendit’s new round of fundraising and status as a unicorn will strengthen our mission to provide reliable and secure financial infrastructure to hundreds of thousands of growing businesses across the Philippines," according to Yang Yang Zhang, CEO and Managing Director of Xendit Philippines.
"Our dream is to accelerate the growth of the Philippine digital economy by continuing to build first-to-market solutions for enterprises and SMEs alike, while introducing the global VC community to the growing local startup ecosystem,” he elaborated.
Despite being a newcomer in the local payments space, Xendit has become one of the biggest payment gateways in the country.
It was the first payment gateway to launch a direct debit and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) solution as well as integrate to the top three e-wallets: GCash, Grabpay and Paymaya.
In the Philippines, about 67 percent of the population are internet users in which 42% use banking and financial services apps for their digital transaction needs.
This could be attributed to the e-commerce growth in the country with more customers shifting their purchases online for safety and convenience amid the pandemic.
This year, 38.88 million Filipinos are making digitally-enabled payment transactions.
To build on this momentum, Xendit will be introducing three key initiatives.
The first is Auto Debit and Recurring Payments to support subscriptions and account linking for future payments through Xendit’s Direct Debit and eWallet products
The second is Level Up Grant, a program for SMEs and individual business owners where they can get 2 months fee waiver across all payment channels, access to exclusive workshops, and be connected to Xendit’s list of partners that could support their businesses.
Finally, they will have an Accelerator Program to help Filipino Start-ups a regionalize via hyper-localization, provide opportunities for fee waivers and bridge the gap between Filipino SMEs and international investors.
“Xendit’s digital payments infrastructure, built specifically for Southeast Asia, is quickly becoming the standard for financial operations in the region,” noted Alex Cook, Partner, Tiger Global Management.
Since 2015, Xendit has raised a total of $238 million, including a $64M Series B led by Accel announced this March.
Xendit is also one of the top Southeast Asian company on the YC Top 100 list.