Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Pictures
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Monetary expertise startup Nium informed CNBC Wednesday it raised $50 million in new funds from traders, and is focusing on an preliminary public providing within the subsequent 18 months.
The fundraising spherical was led by an undisclosed Southeast Asian sovereign wealth fund. It locations Nium’s valuation at $1.4 billion.
That marks a 30% low cost to its earlier valuation of $2 billion, which the agency notched in 2022 when it final raised exterior enterprise capital.
Prajit Nanu, Nium’s CEO and founder, mentioned the agency would use the recent capital to double down on mergers and acquisitions, focusing on different growth-stage fee corporations.
Nanu mentioned his firm’s down spherical was the results of a broader despair in public market valuations of fintech corporations.
Fintechs have seen their inventory costs slashed in recent times on account of macroeconomic pressures, together with excessive inflation and rising rates of interest.
“Being sensible, after we raised in early 2022, public markets had been killing it,” Nanu mentioned. “The general public markets haven’t been variety to fintech.”
IPO in 18 months
Nanu mentioned that, regardless of the decrease valuation, he’s nonetheless bullish on the expansion story for Nium and is assured the corporate will go public within the subsequent 18 months, focusing on a flotation within the third or fourth quarter of 2025.
He added that valuation is not a priority for him and that it will not matter what worth the corporate costs its shares as markets are risky by nature.
“Whether or not you go public at $1 billion, $5 billion, it does not matter. As a result of the valuation is just once you get purchased, or once you undergo an IPO,” he mentioned.
He famous the instance of Stripe, which raised a $95 billion valuation within the heady days of 2021 earlier than slashing its worth to $50 billion after which boosting its valuation to $65 billion in secondary share transactions.
Any IPO for Nium could be a boon to its investor base, which incorporates the like of enterprise capital corporations BOND, NewView Capital, and Tribe Capital
Not enthusiastic about crypto
Nanu mentioned he is not enthusiastic about buying corporations within the cryptocurrency area as he does not but see service provider demand for crypto as a fee technique.
“It is on the very early facet of infrastructure,” Nanu mentioned. “Nium in the long run is a layer on high of numerous banks on this planet.”
“Banks have gone from, crypto is sizzling, to not crypto, to crypto,” he added. “It is not one shoe matches all.”
That is regardless of an enormous rise in costs of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, which have rallied off the again of renewed investor curiosity following the approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds within the U.S.
Bitcoin has seen its value climb roughly 150% within the final 12 months.
