Payments Firm XanPool Raises $27M in Funding Round Led by Valar Ventures

Hong Kong based payments infrastructure firm XanPool has raised $27 million in a Series A funding round led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, the company announced Friday.

• Other participating investors included CMT Digital and the founder and chairman of Wise, formerly TransferWise, Taavet Hinrikus.

• XanPool describes itself as a payments and liquidity network similar to Mastercard or Visa, but rather than having a closed network of banks as partners, XanPool has an open network of individuals and businesses whose idle capital is used to settle cross-currency and cryptocurrency transactions

• Jeffery Liu, CEO at XanPool, which currently operates in over 13 countries in the Asia Pacific region, said the firm’s network will eventually look more similar to the SWIFT network, since XanPool earns fees based on the communication that its software facilitates.

• The SWIFT network is a messaging network used by many banks and financial institutions to send and receive money and information around the globe.

• “But unlike SWIFT, XanPool is compatible with modern payment solutions like cryptocurrency, fast-payments and e-wallets. You can expect more innovation from XanPool in this direction,” said Liu.