Jeffrey Liu, founder and CEO of XanPool, a Hong Kong-based cross-border payments platform, is among … [+]
XanPool – a cross-border payments infrastructure provider – is accelerating expansion plans across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America after raising $41 million this year from investors led by London’s Target Global.
The Hong Kong-based startup weathered the global startup funding winter by raising $35 million from new investor Target Global and $6 million from existing investor Antler Elevate in the second quarter, valuing the company at $400 million. Global investments by venture capital firms fell 34 percent to $74.5 billion in the third quarter from the previous three months, the lowest level in nine quarters, data from research firm CB Insights showed.
“We are preparing ourselves for a long winter,” said Jeffrey Liu, 28, XanPool’s founder and CEO, in a recent interview in Singapore. Liu is among the Forbes 30 Under 30 winners in Asia Finance and venture capital category who use technology to disrupt the conservative world of finance.
The funding will help Xanpool take advantage of opportunities in new growth markets outside of Asia, its largest market. It will also plan to establish a research and development center in Thailand, where Liu aims to relocate the company’s remote team of software engineers and product developers in the coming years. “We move most of our remote staff under one roof in Thailand.”
Since its inception in 2019, XanPool (which supports both cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies) has grown rapidly during the pandemic amid a boom in cross-border trade in Asia as merchants who have traditionally relied on financial intermediaries such as Visa and MasterCard to process international payments migrate to Xanpool’s platform. The company currently has a user base of over 2 million.
“We’re always looking for fresh ideas and disrupting traditional payment systems and XanPool was a great fit,” says Mike Lubnov, co-founder and partner at Target Global, in a text message from Cyprus.
Despite macroeconomic headwinds from rising inflation and tightening interest rates around the world, Liu says the company’s revenue is likely to more than triple to $65.8 million this year from last year, and climb further to more than $163 million in 2023. “We are responsible scale and sustainable growth,” he said.
