Singapore payments company Nium Pte aims to break even in time for a US initial public offering within two years, a positive signal for Southeast Asia’s struggling startup ecosystem.
Nium, valued at about US$2 billion, is preparing to go public in the US by the second quarter of 2025, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Prajit Nanu said in an interview in Singapore. Nium, which like larger US peer Stripe Inc. helps companies handle payments, more than doubled its revenue to US$82 million last year even as Southeast Asia’s tech and startup industries were hit by rising interest rates and higher levels of inflation.
The company, which expanded rapidly by buying London-based Ixaris, Singapore’s SoCash as well as Wirecard Forex India Pvt over the past two years, expects to break even within 12 months and be profitable before it goes public, Nanu said.
“We should be ready for an IPO by the end of next year, and then start looking at how the market is in 2025,” Nanu said. “No one can time the market, but the focus for us over the next 18 months is to be fully prepared.”
Nium, whose backers include Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte, its sister firm Temasek Holdings Pte and California-based Riverwood Capital LLC, will remain on the lookout for acquisition targets in markets including Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, Nanu said. The company is looking to snap up two to three payments startups over the next 12 months and has set aside $50 million in cash to fund the purchases.
Nanu co-founded Nium, which means “rules” in Sanskrit, as a cross-border remittance service in 2014. After growing up in Mumbai, he got a taste of what it’s like to build businesses during his dozen years at upstart companies including Adventity and WNS Global Services.
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He came up with the idea after trying to send money from India to Thailand to organize a bachelor’s party for a friend in 2013. He ran into a problem as a Thai resort refused to take his credit card and insisted on a bank transfer, while his bank in India requested an extensive list of documents for transferring $640.
Today, Nium counts Thailand’s Kasikornbank Pcl and Singapore Telecommunications Z74 Ltd. among its almost 400 clients. Its software helps businesses accept online payments, and allows them to send money and issue physical and virtual credit cards. The company has over 1,000 employees across more than 20 offices worldwide.
Temasek is Nium’s largest shareholder, owning more than 20% of the company together with its unit Vertex Holdings, a spokesperson for the fund said. Nium doesn’t disclose the breakdown of its shareholders’ stakes, a spokesperson for the startup said.
(Updated with size of Temasek’s stake in ninth paragraph on Jul 4, 2023, at 5.18PM)
