Instarem, a Singapore based digital payment startup on Wednesday announced the first close of its $45 million in C series funding by closing over $20 million (Rs 143.15 crore).
The round was led by new investors MDI Ventures (the VC arm of Indonesia’s Telkom) and Beacon Venture Capital (the VC arm of Thailand’s KASIKORNBANK) in the participation of its existing investor’s Vertex Ventures, GSR Ventures Rocket Internet and SBI-FMO Fund.
The new round funding of $45million will take Instagram’s overall funding to over US$ 63 million (INR 451 crore), which is expected to close by January 2019, with a plan to go plugin in 2021.
InstaReM said, “The funding will be used for business expansion in its existing market as well to enter in new markets in Japan and Indonesia where the company is expected to receive the licenses by the end of this year.”
Adding to this the company said, “The new round funding will also enable InstaReM to launch new consumer and enterprise product in 2019 for which the company has an aggressive plan.”
Founded in 2014 by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham, InstaReM provides cross-border payment services to any individual and enterprise to send and receive money fast and at low cost.
Talking about the recent round funding, InstaReM founder and CEO, Prajit Nanu said “The promise we’ve made to our customers, from day one, is that we’ll always be transparent, and we’ll forever give them the best value we can to help them #DoMore with their money. No matter where they are in the world, and no matter if they’re a business or an individual sending money overseas, it’s been our mission to be their champion. That’s why we were one of the first Asian remittance providers to move outside of Asia, and that’s another reason why we’ve been able to secure this historic round of funding.”
“In less than 4 years, we have become the payment backbone for emerging markets for banks and other global financial. We are still a young firm, but a hungry one, this new round of funding enables us to accelerate growth by launching new products,” he added.
MDI ventures CEO, Nicko Widjaja said “We see that InstaReM has strong capability to enable cross-border payment and remittance between Indonesia and its international partners. By providing the lowest exchange rates among competing services, InstaReM provides significant value to both local and foreign migrant workers looking to transfer funds to their home countries and to local businesses looking to conduct trade with international parties with the hope that they can boost/stimulate international trade exports. With Indonesia’s fintech sector experiencing peak levels of growth, we believe that it is the ideal time for fintech companies, such as InstaReM, to focus on expansion throughout the country. As part of our thesis at MDI Ventures, we are keen to support InstaReM with their expansion in Indonesia and ASEAN through a strategic partnership with various Telkom business units around the region.”
“We have been following InstaReM for some time, and are impressed with the way the company has been expanding globally and scaling up its operations. As KASIKORNBANK becomes the digital bank of choice for customers, we have a strong commitment to working closely with category leaders in each sector and constantly improving our customer experience,” Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon VC, added.