How Sunrate reached $100m in annualized revenue while staying profitable

Photo credit: Sunrate

Sunrate, a Singapore-based fintech company backed by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India and Southeast Asia), has hit US$100 million in annualized revenue, based on figures in August.

Yearly revenue at the firm has also grown by over 80% year on year in the last three years.

“We have been profitable since about three years ago, and this year, even with the current macroeconomic environment, we still see close to 100% year-on-year growth,” Sunrate co-founder Paul Meng said.

Meng, who is also a former corporate foreign-exchange sales executive at Citibank, was speaking at the Tech in Asia Conference in Jakarta last month in a fireside chat with Peak XV Partners managing director Abheek Anand.

Sunrate achieved net profitability in 2021 and has maintained it since – a feat it attributes to expansion into new markets and new business verticals, such as multicurrency commercial cards for business travel.

Sunrate was founded in 2016 as a firm offering payments and treasury solutions. It expanded into Southeast Asia last year, setting up a global headquarters in Singapore. Now, it also has a presence in Indonesia, Hong Kong, and London.

The firm enables companies to make cross-border payments to other businesses. Besides international payments, Sunrate offers global collection accounts, commercial cards, and treasury management.

See also: How a Singapore D2C firm used infomercials to build profitable $28m business

In 2021, Asian countries generated over 40% of the US$200 billion global cross-border payments revenues, as reported by management consultancy McKinsey & Company. The lion’s share came from the B2B segment, with revenues at least triple that of consumer-focused sectors.

Sunrate’s tie-ups with global payments companies like Visa and Mastercard facilitate this. Through a partnership with Visa, for instance, Sunrate customers can directly transfer and receive funds to and from eligible Visa debit and prepaid cards.

During his time at Citibank, Meng observed a growing demand from SMEs wanting to participate in international business. This led him to start Sunrate, and now the firm’s business payment network enables customers to reach over 190 countries and 130 currencies.

Sealing a deal in “less than two months”

In July, Sunrate raised an undisclosed series D extension round led by Peak XV Partners.

Meng shared that Peak XV Partners was the first investor Sunrate engaged with in Southeast Asia, and it took “less than two months” from their first face-to-face discussion to finalize the agreement.

Four years to build infrastructure