Lianlian raises US$147 million

Lianlian DigiTech, parent company of Hangzhou-based third-party payment platform Lianlian Pay, announced recently that it had raised 1 billion yuan (US$147 million) in its latest financing round.

The fundraising was backed by Sequoia Capital China and Boyu Capital. Sequoia Capital has been an active investor supporting some of the major Internet companies in their early stages, including Toutiao, Dianping, Meituan and Didi Chuxing.

The fundraising follows an earlier investment by Everbright Industry Group and Cybernaut Investment Group and brings the total investment to almost 5 billion yuan.

The money from the two rounds of funding will be mainly used to accelerate the company’s talent recruitment and international expansion,focusing on the construction of a global capital network centered around cross-border payments.

Non-bank third-party payment is a fast-growing market in China and mobile payment is fast becoming the most dominant payment method.

A report from Analysys shows that by the end of 2017 mobile payment transactions were worth 37.727 trillion yuan, 27.9 percent higher than a year earlier.

Lianlian Pay ranked fourth in the market, after Alibaba’s Alipay, Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Ping An’s Yiqianbao.

While Alipay and WeChat account for more than 92 percent of the domestic third-party e-payment market, the cross-border payment market offers huge potential.

Currently, 35 companies are licensed by the central bank, the People's Bank of China, for cross-border payment.

Lianlian Pay CEO Pan Guodon said the company's cross-border payment business exceeded 20 billion yuan and 300,000 customers in China in the first half of 2018.