The Thai based start-up Lightnet has raised USD 31.2 million in a first financing round.

The technology based on the Stellar Lumens blockchain is designed to replace existing systems like SWIFT and Ripple.

The blockchain startup Lightnet, headquartered in Bangkok, has raised more than USD 31.2 million in venture capital in a new financing round. Business Insider Malaysia reported a few hours ago that Lightnet wants to attack traditional systems like SWIFT. The capital is to be used to build a software solution using the Stellar Blockchain.

4 billion users should benefit from the technology

Among the investors are well-known financial conglomerates such as UOB Venture Management, Seven Bank, Uni-President Asset Holdings, HashKey Capital, Hopeshine Ventures, Signum Capital, Du Capital and Hanwha Investment and Securities. Lightnet was founded by Chatchaval Jiaravanon, a family member of the Charoen Pokphand Group in Thailand and the technology entrepreneur and former investment banker Tridbodi Arunanondchai.

China and India are among the most populous countries in the world, making them Lightnet’s largest target market. Together, these countries account for more than half of the world’s population. Jiaravanon describes that Stellar Lumens has the perfect technology for this:

We launched Lightnet to offer low-cost and instantaneous financial inclusivity and mobility to the four billion lives across Asia Pacific — all powered by Stellar’s fast, scalable, and sustainable blockchain technology.

Business Insider further states that Lightnet was founded to revolutionize the trillion dollar remittance market worldwide. Lightnet first wants to help the millions of migrant workers without bank accounts who send their hard-earned money home to their families using old remittance methods at overpriced fees and long transaction times.

This niche market with a total volume of more than 150 billion USD worldwide is to be taken over step by step by Lightnet and old inefficient systems such as SWIFT will be driven out of the market. Tridbodi Arunanondchai, Vice Chairman of Lightnet, states that in the next three years a volume of 50 billion USD is already to be handled by Nightnet:

It’s vital that we build an ecosystem to provide Lightnet access to our partners’ vast user base and facilitate deeper penetration into local markets. We project that within three years, Lightnet will facilitate over $50 billion worth of annual transactions through our industry- leading partner network.

Lightnet offers three innovative payment solutions: BirdgeNet, LiquidNet and SmartNet. The main platform is already completed. The first transaction should be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2020. The company also plans to establish further collaborations with MoneyGram, Seven Bank, Yeahka or Ksher in Japan to ensure the continued growth of the ecosystem.

Stellar Lumens vs. Ripple

Both Ripple and Stellar Lumens provide payment solutions that enable cross-border transactions in near real-time at low cost. Ripple announced tremendous growth and expansion of its own presence in Asia in 2020. Ripple is already working with MoneyGram and is achieving strong results. MoneyGram CEO Alexander Holmes praised Ripple in the highest tones.

Stellar Lumens recently presented the financing plan for the next 10 years. The plan calls for the remaining 30 billion XLM, approximately $1.3 billion USD, to be used for a variety of purposes, including relationship development, marketing and developer compensation. Whether Stellar Lumens can hold its own against Ripple will be seen over the next few years.

The price of XLM is $0.0480 USD at the time of writing, an increase of 4.58% in the last 24 hours.

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