SoftBank might be the investment firm outside of China that understands mobile payments the best.
Tapping Ant Financial and Tencent’s interests in overseas markets, SoftBank has investments in every major emerging economy.
Southeast Asia: Grab
SoftBank inject another $2 billion earlier this year into Grab. It first invested in GrabTaxi back in 2014 with $250 million Series D, making itself the largest shareholder. GrabTaxi then rebranded into Grab in 2016, entering into payment service with GrabPay and other businesses. It also acquired Kudo based in Indonesia in 2017 to beef up its payment platform.
[Also, in July, Softbank’s Vision Fund and GIC invested $300 million in e-wallet VNPAY’s parent company for Vietnam]
India: Paytm
This week, SoftBank and Ant Financial injected $1 billion into Paytm. The competition intensifies with Google Pay, payments from e-commerce and Facebook’s payment especially on WhatsApp.
Argentina: Ualá
On November 25, Ualá raised a $150 million Series C led by Tencent and SoftBank. Ualá is a mobile banking tech platform and allows users to transfer money, invest in mutual funds, request loans, pay bills and top-up prepaid services.
Mexico: Clip
SoftBank invested $20 million in Clip, leading a $100 million round in May. Clip offers Square-like products for merchant payments, as the country is more relying on cards.
Updates – Mexico: Konfio
On December 3, SoftBank invested $100 million into Konfio, which provides credit underwriting, or SMB loans.
Combining Konfio and Clip will create the Square or Clover in Mexico.
An easy model and bet on those economies.