CHAI, a Singapore-based payment solutions startup, has raised US $45 million in a Series B+ investment round headed by SoftBank Ventures Asia (SBVA) and Nyca Partners, a US-based fintech venture capital firm.
Participants included KT Investment, Conductive Ventures, Nordstar Capital, Samsung NEXT, and B Capital.
The fresh funds will be used to extend CHAI’s presence in Southeast Asia and to create a “fully automated end-to-end payment infrastructure” for digital businesses across Asia.
This transaction comes precisely a year after Hanhwa Investment & Securities led a US$60 million Series B round with participation from SoftBank Ventures Asia, SK Networks, and Aarden Partners.
CHAI, which was founded in 2019, offers local businesses a unified payment orchestration solution via a single application programming interface (API).
CHAI claims to have processed more than US $6 billion for over 2,200 businesses.
The company recently launched CHAI Port in Vietnam and Thailand, both of which have extremely fragmented payment marketplaces, and has begun to assist local businesses including Saigon Coop (a big supermarket) and SoBanHang (e-commerce enabler for SMEs).
In South Korea, CHAI also runs an e-wallet that connects to a gamified rewards programme that allows over 3 million users to get quick cash back at well-known companies.
“Emerging markets in Southeast Asia represent some of the fastest growth opportunities in digital payments. With the COVID-19 pandemic making accepting digital payments a necessity, we want to empower both global and local merchants to rapidly expand into new markets and reach billions of global consumers, respectively,” said Daniel Shin, CEO of CHAI.
