The funds will facilitate an expansion of the platform’s features
Cross-border payment solutions provider Ksher announced this week that it has closed a $10 million Series A+. The round was led by MindWorks Capital and had participation from strategic investors based in Japan and Malaysia, a statement from the company said.
Based in Beijing, Ksher is a global mobile payments aggregator. It facilitates international payments from a number of platforms including Alipay and WeChat Pay, and international ewallets PromptPay, TrueMoney, LINE Pay, AirPay, and GrabPay.
The financing will be used to continuously develop software products and to acquire small and medium-sized local merchants, Ksher told Jumpstart via email.
Founded in 2016, Ksher has onboarded more than 100,000 merchants with an annual transaction volume of over $1 billion. The startup’s suite of payment solutions include hardware, point-of-sale systems integrations, and app technology to allow multi-currency and multi-ewallet settlements.
MindWorks Partner Joe Chan said in the press statement that with low penetration of credit cards in Southeast Asia, mobile payments are a more favorable cashless solution.
“With acquiring licenses in many of its operational countries, Ksher is well positioned to become the end-to-end commerce infrastructure for local merchants, financial institutions, and ewallets,” he added.
The payments solutions provider recently added marketing solutions to its platform, the statement said. With MarkeTech, Ksher enables brand marketing, online retail, hotel bookings, restaurant ordering services (used in places such as the King Power food court in Bangkok), and customized membership systems.
“Marketech has always been one of Ksher’s two main products, the other one [being] Fintech,” a Ksher spokesperson said in the email. “With this ‘online sale enabler system,’ local merchants can operate more efficiently,” they added.
Along with Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, Ksher also has a presence in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). With its online sale enabler system, Ksher is now entering the local consumption market mainly in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Ksher CEO Bryan Zhou said in the statement that the platform would be expanding collaborative efforts with financial institutions and government authorities as well. Ksher currently partners with Japan’s Rakuten Bank, the UAE’s Mashraq Bank, and Russia’s Ribank, in addition to joint efforts with Thai government units.
The Series A+ funding will also be used to add more merchant solutions to the Ksher platform. These include features such as financing, installment plans, memberships, loyalty points, and coupons.
Prior to this round, Infinity Venture Partners injected seed capital into the startup in 2017, and Ksher also raised a $10 million Series A in 2018 from Sequoia Capital China.
Header Image by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
