Circle takes $60M to grow its social payments biz globally, as it steps into China

By June 22, 2016Bitcoin Business

How do you compete with China’s homegrown social payments giants? Veteran entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire, co-founder of US based social payments app Circle , reckons you don’t; not like for like in the domestic Chinese market.

Which is really the sensible view, given that WeChat Pay was already seeing some $50 billion in monthly transaction volume back in March. Meanwhile the older Alipay service was doing some $520 billion annually as far back as 2013. The opportunity to crack into this market as small fry seems sizzled to a non-existent crisp. It’s the Chinese startups who are the pioneers here, not vice versa.

Despite that, Circle is now stepping into China — revealing today it’s set up a separate company, called Circle China, with the aim of serving Chinese consumers.

Also today it’s announcing a $60 million Series D, including from a syndicate of Chinese strategic investors, to fuel growth of its global business as a whole. The round is led by existing investor and Beijing based VC IDG Capital Partners, along with Breyer Capital, General Catalyst Partners and what it dubs “a powerful syndicate of major strategic partners” in China, including Baidu, CICC Alpha, EverBright Investments, Wanxiang and CreditEase. Also investing in a personal capacity: Sam Palmisano, former chairman and CEO of IBM, and Glenn Hutchins, co-founder of SilverLake and also a private equity investor.

Circle China has been funded by a separate seed round, of a few million dollars raised some six months ago, albeit with that funding also coming from many of the same investors backing Circle’s global business.

So what’s going on? How is Circle planning to circumvent huge local rivals in China’s personal and social payments space and square a very competitive circle?

East to West

The link is its starting point as a US and now European player, which […]

Leave a Reply

All Today's Crypto News In One Place