Fintech startup gets $150 million funding for digital infrastructure

MANILA, Philippines — Fast-growing payments infrastructure startup Xendit aims to further boost the digital payments infrastructure in the Philippines after receiving $150 million in fresh funding from various investors.

Yang Yang Zhang, chief executive officer and managing director of Xendit Philippines, said in a virtual press conference the new round of fundraising and the company’s status as a unicorn would strengthen its mission to provide reliable and secure financial infrastructure to hundreds of thousands of growing businesses across the Philippines.

“Our dream is to accelerate the growth of the Philippine digital economy by continuing to build first-to-market solutions for enterprises as well as small and medium enterprises alike, while introducing the global VC community to the growing local startup ecosystem.”

Xendit announced that the $150 million Series C elevated the company to a shortlist of Southeast Asia unicorns. The round was led by Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investors Accel, Amasia, and Justin Kan’s Goat Capital.

This latest investment would fuel Xendit’s plans to continue innovating its product suite and make its digital payments infrastructure available to more entrepreneurs in the Philippines and other key markets.

By specializing in building hyper-localized products for archipelago nations and catering to a broad spectrum of customer needs, Xendit has been able to build first-in-market products, provide unparalleled customer service, and quickly adapt to a dynamic region.

Xendit co-founder and CEO Moses Lo said there has been an incredible shift to digital-first.

“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. 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 said.

Xendit’s commitment to strengthen its local Philippines operations is part of its mission to build digital infrastructure in the country and promote financial inclusivity.

It has seen a more than 200 percent increase in total payments volume across the Philippines and Indonesia last year, maintaining a 25 percent 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 Philippines has played an integral part in the company’s growth and journey toward its unicorn status. Despite being a relative newcomer to the local payments space, Xendit has catapulted to becoming 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 uses the internet and 42 percent utilize 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. Overall for 2021, 38.88 million Filipinos are now making digitally-enabled payment transactions.

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.