Two Newest Unicorns in Southeast Asia, from Indonesia and Singapore

Indonesia's Digital payments infrastructure provider Xendit and Singapore's Carousell are two newest unicorns in Southeast Asia.

Xendit has nabbed a $150 million Series C that elevates the company to a short list of Southeast Asia unicorns. Businesses from small kiosks (warungs) to SMBs and large players like Transferwise and Grab use Indonesian-based Xendit's API-based technology to process payments, run marketplaces, disburse payroll, and detect fraud.

The firm, which says it is processing more than 65 million transactions with US$6.5 billion in payment value annually, intends to use use the new funding to scale its business, which mainly operates in Indonesia and the Philippines.

"It’s now clear that businesses need to have a digital presence,” says Moses Lo, co-founder and CEO, Xendit. “Xendit’s digital payments infrastructure enables the region’s new class of entrepreneurs to start and scale their payments faster, and supercharges larger companies with modern, world-class financial services. What AWS has done for Compute, Xendit is doing for payments.”

The new financing comes just six months after the firm raised $64.6 million in a Series B led by Accel.

The latest round was led by Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investor Accel, Amasia, and Justin Kan’s Goat Capital.

Meanwhile, Singapore's online classifieds business Carousell  said it raised $100 million in fresh funds that value the company at more than a billion dollars. It is now valued at $1.1 billion — which makes it Southeast Asia’s latest unicorn, a start-up worth more than a billion dollars.

People are turning more to e-commerce for their shopping needs and that puts companies like Carousell and others in a prime position to tap into Southeast Asia’s $300 billion internet economy.

(various sources)