Temasek-backed Nium to expand in US ahead of potential listing

Singapore

FINTECH company Nium is looking to build its presence in the US as it eyes a public listing in New York in the next 18 to 24 months.

This comes after the Singapore-based company, formerly known as InstaReM, saw its revenue more than double to S$22 million last year following an aggressive expansion from consumer remittance to the lucrative business-to-business (B2B) segment.

Net loss, excluding other income from the reclassification of preference shares, narrowed to S$24.2 million from S$34.7 million in 2019, regulatory filings show.

Nium's payments infrastructure lets companies collect and disburse funds in local currencies to over 100 countries, using a single application programming interface. Businesses can also issue physical and virtual cards globally for spending.

Nium's main markets are Europe and Asia, but co-founder and chief executive Prajit Nanu is moving to the US in September to build the business there.

"US payment platforms are super antiquated, but the US payment infrastructure is now going through a massive change. They are developing FedNow, which is a local real-time payment system. So we want to be at the forefront of that, and I want to personally drive that and scale the business," Mr Nanu told The Business Times.

In April, the company opened an office in San Francisco. It hired Frederick Crosby, a former PayPal and Western Union executive, as chief revenue officer based in the US.

Nium has also set its sights on expanding in other parts of the world. In March, it announced that its clients can now send funds to business partners in four major African markets.

Last month, the company launched a payment solution for the maritime industry that includes real-time payroll disbursements, vendor payments, e-wallet services and remittances. Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) was the first company to tap the service for its seafarer population.

Mr Nanu believes the B2B push is driving Nium on a strong path to cross S$55 million in revenue this year. The segment currently contributes to about 70 per cent of revenue; this could grow to about 90 per cent by year-end, he said.

Shifting to focus on businesses rather than consumers also allowed the group to cut back on advertising and promotion - those expenses totalled S$4 million in 2020, 40 per cent of 2019 levels.

If all goes well, the company might start preparing for an initial public offering this time next year.

The company has raised an aggregate US$93.1 million in equity funding, according to data platform VentureCap Insights. Its investors include Visa, Vertex Ventures and MDI Ventures, the venture capital arm of Indonesia's Telkom.

Temasek invested close to US$20 million through its subsidiary Ossa Investments, regulatory documents filed in March show. In a separate secondary sale, Temasek-owned Fullerton Financial transferred its full stake in the startup to Ossa Investments.

Now that the foundations of the business have been laid out, the challenge ahead lies in executing the company's plans, said Mr Nanu. And having grown from about 275 people at the start of last year to about 500 now, organisational processes need to be better defined.

"We still have the startup DNA. For us to go from 500 to 1,000 and more, we need to start building processes that make us the next Amazon or Microsoft," he said.

READ MORE:

• Temasek-backed Nium to acquire travel payments company Ixaris for potentially £15m
• InstaReM begins major shift towards SME market
• Startups get access to NIUM's tech infrastructure through developer lab BOLT

Garage is BT's startup vertical. Read more news, analyses and opinions at bt.sg/garage