WeChat, Alipay Partner QFPay Notches $20M For Payment Innovation

Digital payments startup QFPay, the largest global partner of WeChat Pay and Alipay, raised $20 million in new funding led by returning investors Sequoia Capital China and Matrix Partners, TechCrunch reported on Tuesday (Aug. 13).

MDI Ventures, Rakuten Capital and VentureSouq also invested in the funding, which is being earmarked for the creation of new digital payment solutions. This new round of funds brings QFPay’s total funding to $36.5 million.

QFPay was founded in China in 2012 and is known for its QR code-based technology. The company says it has processed over 1 billion transactions for 1 million-plus merchants, according to the report.

“We have built our track record, know-how and expertise in this industry since we launched in China, which is dubbed as the birthplace of digital payment,” Co-Founder and CEO Tim Lee said in a statement. “We are excited to leverage what we have learned in the past seven years to help lead the cashless movement in the rest of Asia as demand for digital payment, particularly QR-code payment method, heats up.”

The tech firm is in 13 markets: Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and United Arab Emirates.

WeChat and its local version Weixin hit almost 1.1 billion monthly active users earlier this year, and WeChat’s eWallet saw a daily transaction volume of more than 1 billion last year, according to earnings reports by its parent company, Chinese tech giant Tencent. Merchants that used WeChat Pay on a monthly basis grew more than 80 percent year over year (YOY).

WeChat and Weixin Pay expanded by supporting China’s outbound travelers to make cross-border payments in overseas destinations. Real-time tax refund services are in over 80 airports and 49 markets outside Mainland China, supporting cross-border payment transactions in 16 currencies.

Data shows that Chinese consumers actually prefer using mobile payment and cashless transactions. Last year, more than two-thirds (69 percent) of Chinese travelers paid with their mobile phones.