Accel Leads Xendit’s $65 Million Fundraise For South East Asia’s Digital Payments

Digital payments infrastructure firm Xendit notched $64.6 million in a Series B funding round led by Accel, bringing the total raised to $88 million since the startup’s 2015 founding in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The new funds will be used to further advance the growth and adoption of digital payments in South East Asia as the region strives to strengthen regional infrastructure and bridge the digital gap.

Moses Lo, co-founder and CEO of Xendit, said in a press release on Tuesday (March 2) that the area is a “massively complex region” — geographically, technologically, regulatory.

“Trying to build the businesses of tomorrow on yesterday’s infrastructure is holding Southeast Asia’s businesses back,” Lo said.

He added that the new funding will enable Xendit to swiftly build out its digital payments infrastructure and help millions of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across Southeast Asia “with an on-ramp to the digital economy.”

Tessa Wijaya, co-founder and COO of Xendit, said the number of Indonesians online exceeds 170 million and the middle class there is expanding. “Indonesia’s digital economy is on track to quadruple by 2025,” Wijaya said. “Southeast Asia needs access to a reliable payments infrastructure of its own.”

She added that the company will “supercharge” Southeast Asia’s digital economy and help “the next generation” of SMBs accelerate.

“Xendit has quietly built a modern digital payments infrastructure that’s transformed how Southeast Asian businesses transact,” said Ryan Sweeney, partner at Accel. “Their team’s combination of deep local expertise and global ambitions means they’re uniquely positioned to do what no other company could do in the region. We’re excited to partner with Moses, Tessa and the founding team to help take Xendit to the next level.”

Toms Niparts, CEO of Jeff, an app-based lending platform based in Latvia, said in a PYMNTS interview in January that he sees the large, unbanked population in Vietnam as an opportunity. After a year in business, the Jeff app facilitated loans for over 200,000 Vietnamese.