Asian payments infrastructure builder XanPool has raised US$27 million in a Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures and joined by Wise founder Taavet Hinrikus.
XanPool is a payments and liquidity network that describes itself as similar to Mastercard and Visa. However, instead of having a closed network of banks as partners, XanPool's open C2C network is made out of individuals and businesses, whose idle capital is used to settle cross-currency, and cryptocurrency transactions.
By doing this, XanPool says it reduces the counterparty risk and costs associated with these forms of transfers, while also allowing the individual and business liquidity providers to earn fees of up to two per cent a month on their idle capital.
The company already operates in 13 countries in Asia Pacific, with over 500,000 users and 400 business partners.
Jeffery Liu, COE, XanPool, says "In the coming years, XanPool's network will look more similar to that of the Swift Network. Just like Swift, XanPool does not hold liquidity itself, instead, it relies on the liquidity of all the participants using the network. Just like Swift, XanPool earns fees based on the communication that its software facilitates.
"But unlike Swift, XanPool is compatible with modern payment solutions like cryptocurrency, fast-payments, and e-wallets."