An abstract digital structure showing the concept of blockchain technology with hexadecimal hash data inside each block. This image represents a conceptual design in the domain of IT, cyberspace, cyber security, cryptocurrency or similar industry sectors. The image is a made up 3D concept render.
The United States dollar is the major currency used in all forms of cross-border trade and is even adopted in the cryptocurrency world. As a result of how highly adopted the US dollar is, challenges with cross-border payments become prevalent for businesses that are located in countries with a dollar shortage.
This challenge is what pushed the launch of Taiwan-based Blockchain startup XREX. Headquartered in Tapei, XREX was launched to provide a backbone for businesses that are trying to leverage the opportunities available in emerging markets. XREX aims to help these businesses operate faster, be more efficient, carry out transactions faster and help businesses maximize their business operations. XREX provides a crypto-fiat exchange platform and other products to help these businesses battle the challenges that are birthed from dollar shortages.
XREX announced on Monday that it raised the sum of $17 million in a pre-Series A funding round. The round was led by CDIB Capital Group and saw participation from investors like SBI Investment (a subsidiary of SBI Holdings), Global Founders Capital, ThreeD Capital, E.Sun Venture Capital, Systex Corporation, MetaPlanet Holdings, AppWorks, BlackMarble, New Economy Ventures, and Seraph Group. Before the round, XREX raised $7 million in a 2019 seed round.
The company said that some of the funds will be channeled into acquiring licenses in South Africa, Singapore, and Hong Kong, as well as go into strategic partnerships with financial institutions and banks. According to the company’s co-founder and CEO Wayne Huang, “we specifically wanted to build a regulatory-friendly cap table. It’s really hard for a startup like us to raise from banks and public companies, but as you can see, this round we deliberately to do that and we were successful”.
Speaking about the round and explaining the decision to invest in XREX, Ryan Kuo; CDIB Capital Innovation Fund head said that “CDIB was an early investor in XREX. After witnessing the company’s fast revenue growth and their commitment to compliance, we were determined to double our investment and lead this strategic round”.
Co-founder Wayne Huang revealed that his previous startup called Armorize Technologies, which he sold to Proofpoint in 2013 formed part of the desire to start XREX. “We ran into all sorts of cross-border money transfer issues. It seemed almost unstoppable. Growing up in the U.S. and then in Taiwan, we were not exposed to those issues. So that planted a seed, and then when Satoshi Nakamoto published the bitcoin white paper, of course, that was a big thing for all cybersecurity experts”, he said.
How blockchain could be integrated with business operations and support financial inclusion in underdeveloped markets became the next thing on his mind. Teaming up with co-founder Winston Hsiao who happens to be the founder of BTCEx-TW; one of Taiwan’s oldest bitcoin exchanges brought XREX to life.
What XREX does is it provides tools that give crypto merchants, especially those situated in areas with low U.S. dollar liquidity, the capability to take on trade in digital fiat currencies.
XREX has been going about achieving its aim quite well and some of its partners include CipherTrace, Sum&Substance, and TRISA. Apart from acquiring licenses in the aforementioned countries, the remaining part of the funds will be used to expand its security and compliance features and expand its fiat currency platform.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
