KPay Group, a financial management and business operations platform, has bagged $55 million in its first institutional funding round led by UK-based private equity asset manager Apis Partners, according to a release on Tuesday.
Dually headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore, the fresh proceeds will finance the fintech firm’s expansion plans across emerging markets in Asia, including the likes of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand, per the release. KPay will leverage the capital to drive both company growth as well as strategic mergers and acquisitions.
The investment was led by two funds under the management of the UK-based PE firm, including Apis Growth Markets Fund III and Apis Global Growth Fund III.
With $2.3 billion of assets under management (AUM), Apis Partners is an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and impact-native PE firm which backs growth-stage financial services companies that have an established product-market fit and are ready to scale in global markets, according to the company website.
Founded in 2021, the fintech firm’s platform has since served over 45,000 merchants across Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan.
The latest funding comes at a time when investments in the sector have slowed down amid a funding crunch, despite fintech remaining Southeast Asia’s most-funded sector by deal count and value in Q3.
Fintech firms in the region completed 33 deals, mopping up an aggregate of $0.3 billion, in Q3. The quarterly proceeds were down by 46.2% and the deal volume also dropped by 13.2% compared to the previous quarter, according to DealStreetAsia’s proprietary data.
