Coda Payments raises $2M to enable alternative online payments in Asia

By August 23, 2016Bitcoin Business

Relying on credit cards doesn’t work in Southeast Asia, where less than 10 percent of the 600 million population are estimated to own plastic. That makes alternative payments, like bank transfer or over-the-counter, critical for anyone doing business in the region, where online spending is tipped to race to $200 million in the next 10 years . Coda Payments , one such company that helps simplify the complexity of alternative payments in the region, has raised $2 million in new funding. Existing investors GMO Global Payment Fund, Skype co-founder Toivo Annus and Golden Gate Ventures provided the capital, which takes Coda past $5 million raised to date. The Singapore-based startup last raised a $2.3 million Series A back in December 2013, and it isn’t calling this round its Series B. Neil Davidson, co-founder and CEO of the company, said that it simply raised a sum deemed necessary for progress and then will go from there. “We’re relatively capital efficient,” he explained in an interview with TechCrunch. “That lets us take the money we need to build to the next level, which probably for us means profitability, and then see where we at.” Davidson said this funding would be used to expand into new geographies and to support more payment methods, such as subscription billing for services like music or film streaming. Coda Payments started out focused on Indonesia in 2013, but it has since expanded to cover Southeast Asia’s six most prominent markets: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. Next stop, Davidson said, is Taiwan, which will mark Coda Payment’s first foray outside of Southeast Asia. He said that other expansions are planned, but did not disclose the specifics. Coda Payments was initially focused on enabling carrier billing, but today it goes beyond that. Davidson, who formerly […]

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