InstaReM Secures $45 Mn In Series C Funding

Singapore-headquartered digital payments startup InstaReM, has secured $45 Mn in Series C funding, announcing the first close at $20 Mn.

The latest round of funding was led by new investors, MDI Ventures (the VC arm of Indonesia’s Telkom) and Beacon Venture Capital (the VC arm of Thailand’s KASIKORNBANK).

Existing investors Vertex Ventures, GSR Ventures Rocket Internet, and SBI-FMO Fund also participated in the round.

InstaReM will use the funding to accelerate growth in existing markets and enter new markets in Japan and Indonesia, where the company is expected to receive licenses by the end of this year.

Also, the company plans to launch a new consumer and enterprise product in 2019.

Founded in 2014 by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham, InstaReM offers international money transfers to individuals and businesses and currently operates in more than 55 countries. The firm has regulatory licenses and approvals in Singapore, Australia, India, Europe, United States, Hong Kong, Canada and Malaysia.

With the fresh funding, the company’s total capital till date has reached $63 Mn. The Series C round is expected to close by January 2019, in the run-up to the company’s planned initial public offering (IPO) in 2021.

Prajit Nanu, Mumbai-bred co-founder and CEO of InstaReM said, “In less than 4 years, we have become the payment backbone for emerging markets for banks and other global financial. We are still a young firm, but a hungry one, this new round of funding enables us to accelerate growth by launching new products.”

The company, which received clearance from the Reserve Bank of India in September, 2017,  recently launched its Indian cross-border outward remittance services in partnership with the DCB bank.

InstaReM serves larger institutional and corporate clients with a service called ‘MassPay’ – an international business payments platform with bulk and customised payments facility, multi-currency payments, and other time and cost-efficient payment features.

In 2018, InstaReM partnered with Ripple, an enterprise blockchain network, allowing them to establish new corridors from Brazil to Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Portugal.

Nicko Widjaja, CEO of MDI Ventures said, “We see that InstaReM has strong capability to enable cross-border payment and remittance between Indonesia and its international partners. As part of our thesis at MDI Ventures, we are keen to support InstaReM with their expansion in Indonesia and ASEAN through a strategic partnership with various Telkom business units around the region.”