Phnom Penh-based fintech start-up Clik Payment (Cambodia) Plc announced on Wednesday that it raised $3.7 million in round-one seed funding from global partners and investors.

The financing is the largest ever in Southeast Asia for mobile payments, loyalty programmes, data visualisation, business intelligence and cloud data services, Clik said.

It said funding was led by Openway and Poems Pte Ltd, the investment holding company of Singapore financial house Phillip Capital Pte Ltd, which has more than $35 billion under management.

Among other participants were several global angel investors, a third of which are Cambodia-based.

The financing includes $2 million of commitments announced at the end of 2018 and enables Clik to scale its product engineering and customer service teams as it progresses towards an official launch in Cambodia at the end of this year.

Clik was founded in 2016 and is a payment aggregator that allows consumer payments from cards, wallets and bank accounts accepted by merchants.

It works closely with MYPINPAD Ltd, the first and only company in the world to achieve Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) certification for its software-only Contactless Payments on Commercial (CPoC) off-the-shelf solutions.

MYPINPAD Asia head Morten Hofstad said the company looks forward to supporting Clik in delivering its electronic-know-your customer (eKYC) rapid merchant onboarding solution which will reduce friction and raise financial inclusion for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

He said: “MYPINPAD’s aim is to enable greater financial inclusion with an enhanced consumer experience which will help open and grow new markets for card acceptance.”

Clik CEO and co-founder Matthew Tippetts said: “After two years of scaling up and defining the fundamentals of our regional market strategy, we’re ready to accelerate our growth with the closure of our seed round.

“Our goal here is to offer merchants and consumers a much-needed and attractive digital alternative to cash.”

Despite Covid-19 setbacks, he said, Clik has continued to go from strength-to-strength, focusing on much needed contactless payment solutions and data-driven tools to enable both merchants and consumers to benefit.

“The closing of our seed round is a sign that investors are eager to back future-proof platforms for the ‘new normal’ that will inevitably exist post-Covid.

“It also shows that investors see attractive opportunities for investment in Cambodia, especially in start-ups with robust regional potential,” Tippets said.

Clik partnerships include close to 2,500 merchants and five financial institutions with indirect access to over 56,000 merchants in the Kingdom.

Key partners include leading pharmacy group Ucare Pharmacy, convenience store brand Kiwimart and Chip Mong Retail Co Ltd.