GIC-backed US$2 billion fintech Nium targets US IPO in two years

The company, which expanded rapidly by buying London-based Ixaris, Singapore’s SoCash as well as Wirecard Forex India Pvt over the past two years, expects to break even within 12 months and be profitable before it goes public, Nanu said.

“We should be ready for an IPO by the end of next year, and then start looking at how the market is in 2025,” Nanu said. “No one can time the market, but the focus for us over the next 18 months is to be fully prepared.”

Nium, whose backers include Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte, its sister firm Temasek Holdings Pte and California-based Riverwood Capital LLC, will remain on the lookout for acquisition targets in markets including Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, Nanu said. The company is looking to snap up two to three payments startups over the next 12 months and has set aside $50 million in cash to fund the purchases.

Nanu co-founded Nium, which means “rules” in Sanskrit, as a cross-border remittance service in 2014. After growing up in Mumbai, he got a taste of what it’s like to build businesses during his dozen years at upstart companies including Adventity and WNS Global Services.

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He came up with the idea after trying to send money from India to Thailand to organize a bachelor’s party for a friend in 2013. He ran into a problem as a Thai resort refused to take his credit card and insisted on a bank transfer, while his bank in India requested an extensive list of documents for transferring $640.

Temasek is Nium’s largest shareholder, owning more than 20% of the company together with its unit Vertex Holdings, a spokesperson for the fund said. Nium doesn’t disclose the breakdown of its shareholders’ stakes, a spokesperson for the startup said.

(Updated with size of Temasek’s stake in ninth paragraph on Jul 4, 2023, at 5.18PM)