Chatchaval Jiaravanon and Tridbodi Arunanondchai, co-founders of Thai fintech firm Lightnet, which provides blockchain-based solutions for the Asian remittance sector, have raised US $48 million, according to DealStreetAsia.
Jiaravanon is a part of the Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailand’s largest private enterprise. In 2018, he paid $150 million for Fortune magazine.
Arunanondchai is a former investment banker and serial software entrepreneur. Privepass.com, a travel club, and Play Media, a digital agency, are two of his former businesses.
Lightnet is headquartered in Singapore and has its headquarters in Bangkok.
Lightnet, which was founded in 2018 with US $10 million from Jiaravanon, uses smart contract and distributed ledger technology to enter into the “trillion-dollar” global remittance business, linking current financial institutions with its network of cash agents and wallets.
Existing money transfer operators, financial institutions, and other cross-border payment providers, according to the company, will be more effective. These companies are now dependent on “outdated, pricey, and fragmented” offerings, according to the report. In key Southeast Asian economies, Lightnet pays careful attention to the millions of unbanked migrant workers.
Lightnet announced in January 2021 that it has chosen Velo Labs’ Velo System as its blockchain protocol. It is currently positioned as the region’s next-generation clearing and settlement network.
Velo Labs creates the Federated Credit Exchange Network, which enables partners in the legacy finance, CeFi, and DeFi industries to safely and securely transfer value amongst one another while maintaining maximum efficiency and transparency. The company considers itself to be one of the few blockchain ventures “on the verge of widespread acceptance.”
Six conglomerates and two venture capital firms, including UOB Venture Management, Seven Bank, Uni-President Asset Holdings, HashKey Capital, Hopeshine Ventures, Signum Capital, Du Capital, and Hanwha Investment and Securities, co-invested in a Series A fundraising round for Lightnet in January.
Despite the COVID-19 challenges, remittance flows in low- and middle-income countries remained resilient in 2020, totalling US $540 billion, down just 1.6 percent from the 2019 total of US $548 billion, according to the World Bank’s latest figures. Thai fintech companies have landed large agreements in recent years, with Ascend Money becoming Thailand’s first financial unicorn in September.
