BRI Ventures Engaged in Funding for Nium, a Singapore-based Remittance Startup

BRI Ventures announces its involvement in a new funding round for Nium, a startup fintech from Singapore. Apart from BRI Ventures, VISA also participated in this round.

As reported Business times, Co-founder & CEO Nium Prajit Nanu said that this fundraising was aimed at realizing market expansion plans, both for new and emerging segments. Existing, through product development.

"We are interested in collaborating with local payment platform providers that can help us penetrate our market faster. We will remain focused on serving our users, such as in Europe, India, the UK and the United States (US)," said Nanu.

In addition, the company also plans to build a payment infrastructure that can reach the retail, SME, and large-scale corporate markets. This effort is carried out to pursue profitability which is targeted to be realized in mid-2021.

Nium was previously called InstaRem, which provides a remittance service platform that provides delivery services in 90 countries. In Indonesia, Nium opened its business operations at the end of 2019.

Before changing the name, Nium once got injection of funds from MDI Ventures in 2014. At that time, MDI Ventures was still led by Nicko Widjaja who now leads BRI Ventures. In the first quarter of 2020, Nium has pocketed a transaction value of $2 billion.

Meanwhile, CEO of BRI Ventures Nicko Widjaja said that he was looking forward to Nium's business growth going forward in line with the expansion of its services which began to enter the corporate and SME segments.

"Potency fintech it's unlimited. We look forward to supporting Nium on its growth path as it expands into the Indonesian market and beyond," said Nicko.

About BRI Ventures, the new company was founded in 2019 with an initial injection of Rp. 1,5 trillion from its parent company. Until the end of 2019, BRI Ventures had only injected IDR 278,11 billion in the form of a 17 percent stake in the platform e-money LinkAja.

Contacted separately, VP of Investor Relations and Strategy at BRI Ventures, Markus Liman, revealed that this synergy will later strengthen BRI's remittance business.

"No new products, stay the same. But, Nium will strengthen from the side payment networks. For this collaboration, we are entering the pilot stage first," said Markus DailySocial.

Meanwhile, MDI Ventures Managing Partner Kenneth Li revealed that this time MDI Ventures was not involved in Nium's new funding round. The company also does not plan to do exit soon.

"For exit, Nium seems to need some [funding] round again. Since the first investment until now, Nium's growth has reached almost 5 times. In terms of valuation, the growth is also quite good," he said DailySocial.

BRI's participation in Nium's new funding appears to be part of the company's strategy to realize the vision of becoming The Most Valuable Bank in Southeast Asia and Home to the Best Talent. BRI is aggressive to strengthen its position in the financial ecosystem, including fintech and non-fintech.