Xendit

Market position

Xendit describes itself as a leading payment gateway in Indonesia and Southeast Asia and has been referred to as the "Stripe of Southeast Asia." Its Series D investors characterized it as a dominant regional player, and the company says it became one of the largest payments players in the Philippines after entering that market. It reached unicorn status in 2021 and reported more than 500 million transactions processed yearly as of its current company page.

The company positions deep local payment expertise and regulatory knowledge combined with a modern, easy-to-integrate technology stack as its main advantage, citing direct integrations with 100+ predominantly non-card local payment methods in a single platform and a series of market firsts (payout APIs with batch disbursement and auto-debit-integrated recurring payments in Indonesia, auto-debit flows in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, and virtual-account-based bank transfers in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore). The founders note that against two incumbent Indonesian competitors, their API was easier to integrate and cheaper, without sign-up and cancellation fees.

Technology

The platform is API-first and cloud-based, built on direct integrations with hundreds of local payment methods, banks and e-wallets so merchants avoid separate bank-by-bank integrations. Capabilities include payout APIs with batch disbursement, virtual accounts, auto-debit and scheduled recurring payments, automated payment verification, ready-made financial reporting, fraud prevention and identity verification, and a centralized transaction dashboard. The founders describe building system redundancy in the cloud after early outages, scaling to process 100-plus simultaneous transactions.

Go-to-market

Xendit combines self-serve onboarding (account setup advertised at five minutes, sandbox environment, documentation, SDKs for Android, iOS/Swift, React Native, Node.js, Java and PHP) with a direct sales motion for larger merchants. Distribution is extended through integrations with e-commerce and business software platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart, Xero and workflow automation tools, plus partner programs, localized country websites, customer case studies, an events presence (e.g., ITB Asia 2025) and 24/7 human support.

Businesses of all sizes in Southeast Asia and global companies expanding into the region: SMEs, e-commerce startups, subscription businesses, financial services firms, marketplaces and platforms, and large enterprises. Cited customers include RedDoorz, Mekari, IFG Life, Nanovest, BookMyShow Southeast Asia, Cohive, Samsung Indonesia and GrabPay.

Geography

Headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia, with offices in Southeast Asia and operations or market coverage spanning Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong; the website also lists Latin America/Mexico. Localized site versions are offered for these markets in English, Indonesian, Thai and Chinese. Staff are drawn from 10+ countries, and the cofounders described a workforce distributed around the world.

History

After launching a Venmo-like private peer-to-peer transfer app that reached 200,000 users in four months and a pared-down Shopify-style interface for small merchants, the team concluded in 2016 that the underlying B2B payments infrastructure had to come first and, over one weekend, took its internal payments system to market as an external product. Xendit found product-market fit in 2017 with simple payment APIs, launched the Instamoney remittance brand in 2018 alongside roughly 10x growth in five months, secured a Bank Indonesia payment gateway license in 2019, and expanded to the Philippines in 2020 during the pandemic. It raised a US$150 million Series C in 2021, reaching unicorn status, followed by a US$300 million Series D in May 2022 that brought total funding to US$538 million. Expansion continued into Malaysia with a Payex partnership in 2023 and Thailand in 2024.

Risks & controversies

Xendit publishes a fraud warning stating it is not a peer-to-peer lending company and has no personal lending products, cautioning against fraudulent use of its brand. The cofounders describe early operational risks including payment processing outages caused by severed data lines during Jakarta road construction, city flooding that halted bank operations, and power failures at their early office, as well as broader challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. It also operates in a licensed, regulated environment across multiple jurisdictions and competes with incumbent local payment gateways.