Hong Kong Fintech XanPool to expand across Europe, Latin America after raising $41 million

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-based Target Global.

The Hong Kong-based startup missed out on global seed funding when it raised $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 investment by venture capital firms fell 34% 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 for a long winter,” Jeffery Liu, 28, founder and CEO of XanPool, said in a recent interview in Singapore. Liu is among this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honorees in Finance and venture capital category which uses technology to disrupt the conservative financial world.

The financing will help Xanpool exploit opportunities in new growth markets outside Asia, the largest market. It will also plan to establish a research and development center in Thailand, where Liu aims to relocate the firm’s team of external software engineers and product developers in the coming years. “We are moving most of our external employees under one roof in Thailand.”

Since its founding in 2019, XanPool (which supports both crypto 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 exchange to Xanpool’s platform. The company currently has a user base of over 2 million.

“We’re always looking for new ideas and disrupting the traditional payment systems, and XanPool was a great fit,” says Mike Lobanov, founder and partner at Target Global, via text message from Cyprus.

Despite macroeconomic headwinds from rising inflation and tighter interest rates around the world, Liu says the company’s revenue is likely to more than triple to $65.8 million this year from a year earlier, and climb further to over $163 million in 2023. “We scale responsibly and grow sustainably,” he said.