Nium

wikipedia:Nium is a Singapore-headquartered Fintech company. Originally founded by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham,.^[1] and launched as consumer-remittance platform Instarem in 2014,^[2] the company launched its B2B arm in 2016^[3] and rebranded itself as Nium in 2019^[4], elevating Pratik Gandhi to cofounder in 2021^[5]

History[edit]

Founders Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham developed a solution to provide a transparent service for overseas money transfer^[6] with close to live exchange rates. Instarem was incorporated based on the premise of online instant remittances, hence the name Instarem.^[7]

By 2017, the company had begun to operate a cross-border payment service targeted at business users, including banks and retailers^[8]^[9]. Subsequently, in 2019, the company rebranded to Nium^[10], with Instarem continuing to operate as a wholly-owned consumer service.^[11]^[12]^[13]

In 2021, the company made its first acquisitions^[14]: Wirecard Forex, a payments services company in India,^[15] and Ixaris, a travel payments optimization firm.^[16] In April 2022, Nium acquired payment platform Socash.^[17]

Funding[edit]

In January 2015, Global Founders Capital, Germany-based Venture Capital arm of Rocket Internet Founders, invested US$500,000 as seed round of funding in Instarem that helped the company develop its money transfer platform.^[18]

In March 2016, Instarem received an investment of US$5 million in Series A from Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India (part of the Vertex Holdings network of funds), Fullerton Financial Holdings and Global Founders Capital, to acquire licenses for money transfer business in other markets.^[19]^[20]^[21]

July 2017 followed with a Series B round of US$13 million led by GSR ventures, with participation from SBI-FMO Ventures, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, Fullerton Financial Holdings, and Global Founders Capital.^[22]^[23] This investment was slated to further build its global payment infrastructure by way of increasing its payment corridors from 150 to around 2000.^[24]

In November 2018 the company raised a Series C round of over $20 million, directed towards growth in new emerging markets in Latin America as well as Europe.^[25]

This was followed by a private equity investment round of over $20 million^[26] in May 2020 by BRI Ventures, the corporate venture division of Bank BRI of Indonesia, and Visa.^[27]

By July 2021, the company had raised a Series D round^[28] of USD$200M,^[29]^[30] led by Riverwood Capital with participation from Temasek, GIC, Visa, Vertex Ventures, Atinum Capital, Beacon Venture Capital and Rocket Capital Investment. The company has since been characterized as a “unicorn.” Its valuation as of February 2022 is estimated at $2bn.^[31]