Qupital, the Hong Kong-based provider of capital and financing services to cross-border e-commerce sellers, has raised $150 million to expand business internationally and continue providing lower-cost loans to credit-worthy e-commerce sellers, company executives said in a recent announcement.
The fresh capital comes from a Series B round of equity funding led by Chinese-based Greater Bay Area (GBA) Homeland Development Fund, with additional capital injection coming from several Asian investors, including the Innovation and Technology Venture Fund of the Hong Kong government, Mindworks Capital, Silverhorn, and the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund.
The securitization facility, on the other hand, will enable Qupital to provide both current and future clients with lower-cost loans for the company’s exclusive products. In what is now the first e-commerce merchant financing securitization in Asia, the securitization facility was financed with global investment bank Citi and was supported by the Integrated Alternative Credit Fund.
Founded in 2016, Qupital provides financing to underserved merchants on e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, eBay, Lazada, and Shopee in the merchant banking marketplace. The company uses Big Data, machine learning (ML), and a self-developed risk control model to improve financing efficiency. As of October 2021, the company has advanced more than $500 million in loans to some 7,000 merchants onboarded on its digital platform, with those sellers collectively tracking an annualized gross merchandise value in excess of $3 billion.
The majority of the funds raised will be used to accelerate Qupital’s core lending business to support e-commerce sellers. As part of its five-year plan, the company is set to grow its “buy now, pay later” product model to build an all-encompassing marketplace tailored for business-to-business (B2B) transactions. It also intends to dedicate resources to bolster research and development (R&D) capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data technology, and machine learning operations (MLOps), or the set of best practices for businesses to run AI successfully.
Qupital hopes to use the GBA Homeland network in the region consisting of Hong Kong, Macau, and nine cities in Guangdong Province as a springboard toward increasing local partnerships and on-the-ground knowledge. The company aims to serve clients throughout the GBA cities beyond its current focus on the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
UK-based Nordstar joins the round as a new investor and will help broaden Qupital’s customer base in Western markets. Outside of Greater China, Qupital plans to extend its footprint into international markets, including Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. Andy Chan, Qupital co-founder and current president, said the company remains committed to supporting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with limited access to capital. “It is the cornerstone for us to sharpen our product features, build exclusive relationships with clients, and win over market share to gain an even stronger foothold in the global market.”
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Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
