Hong Kong-headquartered KPay Group (KPay), a one-stop financial management and business operations platform, announced on Tuesday the completion of its first institutional funding round, raising a record $55 million, the largest Series A globally in the payments sector in 2024.

This landmark investment was led by Apis Growth Markets Fund III and Apis Global Growth Fund III (both of which Apis Partners LLP serves as the portfolio manager for), validating KPay’s strategic vision, market leadership and ambitious growth trajectory, the company said in a statement.

UK-based Apis Partners is an ESG and Impact-native global private equity asset manager which manages or advises on total assets under management of $2.3 billion. This investment will not only accelerate KPay’s existing trajectory but also provide the basis for its aggressive expansion plans across Emerging Asia.

With fintech funding in Asia Pacific hitting a six-year low in H1 2024, KPay’s record-breaking Series A stands out as a testament to the company’s execution excellence and opportunity set ahead.

The successful funding also demonstrates investors’ appetite to back companies – like KPay – which have a proven playbook to drive expansion across Asia and can do so in a capital-efficient manner. Notably, up until this Series A round, the company has yet to raise venture capital funding to deliver growth.

The investment from Apis Partners includes a commitment by KPay to expand its presence across key Asian economies, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and more.

KPay will leverage the capital to drive both organic growth and strategic mergers and acquisitions. This partnership aligns closely with the shared vision of Apis and KPay to drive meaningful change, recognizing the critical role of SMEs, which account for 55.8 percent of total employment in Asia, and in turn acknowledges that supporting SME growth fosters broader economic development and strengthens regional economies.

Founded just over three years ago, KPay has achieved a remarkable 166 percent revenue CAGR during this period, operating across Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.

The company has built a one-stop solution to facilitate the financial, operational and digital transformation for merchants of all sizes, and is already serving more than 45,000 merchants in the region.

With its open-architecture ecosystem, KPay currently partners with over 150 SaaS providers, banking institutions, and financial services firms and plans to double its partnerships to support even more businesses across Asia in their financial and digital transformation journey.

Davis Chan, Co-founder and CEO of KPay, said, “We are excited to use this funding to not only expand our existing markets’ SME merchant base, but also broaden our reach into new merchant industry categories, merchants of all sizes, and merchants operating in other underserved markets across Asia.”

Christopher Yu, President and CFO of KPay, added, “Securing this funding gives us financial strength and flexibility to enhance our product innovation, go-to-market speed, customer experience, and operational excellence.”

Matteo Stefanel, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Apis Partners, commented, “As one of the most active global fintech investors in growth-stage companies, Apis is eager to bring our domain expertise to support this exciting phase of KPay’s journey.”

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