Nium raises $200m+ and achieves unicorn status

Nium's valuation is now above $1 billion

Nium, the global B2B payments provider headquartered in Singapore, has raised more than $200 million in a series D round led by Riverwood Capital.

Joining the US-based high-growth tech investor in the series D round were Temasek, Visa, Vertex Ventures, Atinum Group of Funds, Beacon Venture Capital, Rocket Capital Investment, and other notable angel investors.

Nium’s valuation is now above $1 billion, making it the first B2B payments unicorn from Southeast Asia, according to the fintech.

The funding will be used to expand Nium’s payments network infrastructure, drive innovative product development, attract top industry talent, and acquire strategic technologies and companies. The fintech has raised nearly $300 million in funding so far.

Prajit Nanu, co-founder and chief executive officer at Nium, says: “We started Nium with the humble goal of taking out regional complexity in cross-border payments. Today, our sights are set higher. We believe we can be a global catalyst to increase global commerce, removing some of the payments friction which has traditionally held businesses back.”

“The Nium platform simplifies the B2B payments experience by enabling critical financial services to be easily embedded—helping today’s local market players become tomorrow’s global giants.”

Through a single API, Nium provides access to the world’s payment infrastructure, including technologies for pay-outs, pay-ins, card issuance, and banking-as-a-service.

Once connected, Nium customers can send funds to more than 100 countries (most in real-time), pay out in more than 60 currencies, accept funds in seven currencies, and issue cards in more than 40 countries.

Nium’s business has significantly scaled in the past year. The fintech processes $8 billion in payments annually, has issued more than 30 million virtual cards to date, and revenues have grown by more than 280% year-over-year.

With revenues split almost equally across Europe, the Middle East and Africa region and the Asia Pacific, Nium will use funds from this round to accelerate growth in the US and Latin America.

Some of this growth will come from acquisitions. Nium has already acquired travel B2B payments provider Ixaris, which brought comprehensive virtual card issuance capabilities, as well as the acquisition of Wirecard Forex India Private Limited, which gives the fintech greater reach into India’s booming payments market.

Nium says the series D funding provides the flexibility to explore additional strategic opportunities.

Francisco Alvarez-Demalde, co-founding partner and managing partner at Riverwood Capital, comments: “Prajit and the incredibly talented team at Nium have redefined payments for the modern era with an infrastructure that finally makes it easy for companies to embed financial services into business and banking applications.”

“We could not be more excited about this partnership and look forward to seeing Nium continue to set the standard for how global payments are delivered.”

Image: Nium

Mark Dugdale