At the end of April this year, Extransfer Limited-W (hereinafter referred to as “XTransfer”), a B2B cross-border payment platform founded by a “former Alibaba employee”, submitted an application for listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The joint sponsors are UBS Group and CICC.
The prospectus shows that the company was established in 2017. The founder Deng Guobiao once worked for Ant Group and accumulated rich experience in international payment operations, risk control and technology research and development.
The four co-founders have all worked for Ant or Alibaba, so the company has a profound “Alibaba imprint”.
On the eve of the IPO, XTransfer introduced a number of well-known investment institutions, including Gaorong Capital, Yunqi Capital and Alibaba eWTP Capital.
So far, XTransfer has completed seven rounds of financing, and its valuation has increased from US$12 million in the seed round to US$3.02 billion in the E round, a valuation increase of approximately 250 times.
In terms of performance, from 2023 to 2025, the company’s operating income was US$115 million, US$162 million, and US$248 million respectively; while annual losses were US$153 million, US$353 million, and US$484 million respectively. The prospectus disclosed changes in the fair value of convertible and redeemable preferred shares (non-cash book losses).
XTransfer positions itself as a technology-driven enterprise and introduces an AI model in the vertical field of B2B cross-border trade payment.
As of the end of March 2026, XTransfer serves approximately 897,000 registered customers, and the company has 171 global cooperative financial institutions.
Faced with the fierce competition in the payment industry, XTransfer focuses on the B2B cross-border payment track. Compared with Lianlian Number, a comprehensive payment institution listed on the Hong Kong stock market, how does the company shape its differentiated competitiveness?
How will it deal with the increasingly stringent regulatory compliance challenges of cross-border payments?
According to the information disclosed in the prospectus and Tianyancha, XTransfer was established in 2017 and is one of the first payment platforms in the world to focus on B2B cross-border trade. It aims to solve the cross-border payment pain points faced by small and medium-sized enterprises such as exchange rate fluctuations and cumbersome settlement processes, and to provide efficient and convenient cross-border fund collection, exchange and transfer services.
The operating entity of XTransfer is Shanghai Duohui Network Technology Co., Ltd., which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shanghai Duochang Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Duochang Network”).
Duochang Network has a registered capital of 3 billion yuan and is a wholly-owned enterprise with legal persons from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
The prospectus disclosed that XTransfer’s board of directors includes eight directors.
Among them, the company’s founding team members include five executive directors, all of whom have worked for Alibaba or Ant Group.
Among them, the company’s founder and CEO Deng Guobiao served as head of the pricing and strategy team, head of the Jifenbao team, head of the business development team of the international business department, director of international business and head of the international B2C payment business in Ant Group and Alibaba affiliates from July 2010 to April 2017.
Thanks to the founding team’s impressive professional resume and good industry resources, XTransfer has been favored by capital since its establishment.
The prospectus shows that XTransfer completed a seed round of financing of US$2.95 million in July 2017, with a post-money valuation of US$12 million.
The latest round of financing occurred in February 2026, with a financing amount of up to US$69 million, of which US$20.31 million was new investment and US$48.69 million was the purchase of shares from its shareholders.
As a result, the company’s valuation has soared from US$12 million to US$3.02 billion, an increase of approximately 250 times in the past ten years.
In terms of ownership structure, the five founders, including Deng Guobiao and Yao Weichun, are persons acting in concert, holding shares through their respective wholly-owned companies, holding a total of 41.89% of the shares, as controlling shareholders.
At the same time, Gaorong Venture Capital, as the largest institutional investor, holds 12.83% of the shares; while eWTP Capital holds 6.81% of the shares and is an Alibaba affiliate.
As a cross-border payment giant built by former Alibaba people, it attracted many investment institutions before its IPO.
As its business relies on a single B2B field, it remains to be seen whether the company’s profit growth space and business model can be recognized by the capital market.
From the perspective of performance, XTransfer’s operating income has remained stable in the past three years, but its profitability is under obvious pressure.
The prospectus shows that from 2023 to 2025, the company’s revenue will be US$115 million, US$162 million and US$248 million respectively, with a compound annual growth rate of 47.14%; gross profits will be US$110 million, US$152 million and US$229 million respectively, and its gross profit margin in the past three years has exceeded 90%.
The annual losses were US$153 million, US$353 million and US$484 million respectively, mainly due to changes in the fair value of its convertible and redeemable preferred shares.
It is worth noting that based on non-IFRS calculations, XTransfer’s adjusted net profits in the past three years were US$11.203 million, US$5.271 million and US$47.674 million respectively.
“Bullet Finance” noticed that the B2B cross-border trade TPV (total payment transaction volume) data disclosed by XTransfer in the prospectus is the most eye-catching.
(Editor’s note: TPV is the abbreviation of Total Payment Volume. In the cross-border payment industry, it measures the scale of cross-border transaction capital flow served by the platform and does not represent the platform’s revenue.)
The third-party organization Chishi Consulting disclosed that as of the end of 2025, XTransfer has become the world’s largest B2B cross-border trade payment platform, with a market share of 5.1%.
From 2023 to 2025, the company’s TPV will be US$18.633 billion, US$32.618 billion and US$60.516 billion respectively, with a compound annual growth rate of 80%.
From the perspective of business composition, most of XTransfer’s revenue comes from payment services, which mainly include three items: collection services, fund exchange services, transfer and cash withdrawal services. The audience is small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in cross-border trade.
At the same time, the company also provides value-added services such as financial management and software services.
After nearly ten years of development, the company’s cumulative number of registered customers has jumped from 418,500 in 2023 to 826,900 in 2025, nearly doubling, which shows its rapid expansion.
The global multi-license layout has become a rigid prerequisite for the development of cross-border payment platforms.
The prospectus shows that as of the end of March 2026, the company has obtained the required payment licenses or practice permits in mainland China, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada.
In terms of international expansion, the company will focus on emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
In fact, compared to comprehensive payment institutions with a multi-scenario layout, XTransfer’s business is concentrated in the B2B cross-border payment field and faces considerable competitive pressure in core dimensions such as customer stickiness, transaction scale and product matrix.
Whether it can solve these pain points will be the key to its ability to achieve continuous improvement in profitability.
XTransfer is a sales-driven payment company. In the early stages of development, it focused its funds on the sales team and paid more attention to the construction of sales channels, allowing it to achieve rapid expansion of business scale.
This operating model results in sales costs accounting for a large proportion of its cost expenditures, exceeding R&D expenses.
The prospectus shows that from 2023 to 2025, the company’s sales expenses will be US$53.074 million, US$81.288 million and US$96.04 million respectively.
During the same period, the company’s sales expense ratios were 46.25%, 50.15% and 38.65% respectively.
Especially in 2024, sales expenses will reach half of total revenue, which shows the internal emphasis on sales and marketing.
The company’s sales expenses include employee costs, marketing expenses, travel expenses, office expenses and five other items.
Among them, employee costs account for the largest proportion of sales expenses, accounting for 83.9%, 85.5% and 90.3% respectively from 2023 to 2025. It pointed out that the core reason is to support business growth and expand the sales team.
At the same time, XTransfer has also invested a lot of resources in technology research and development, but compared with sales expenses, it has been significantly reduced.
As of the end of 2025, the company’s R&D expenses were US$39.621 million, accounting for only 15.95% of revenue.
Expanding the perspective to the leading payment giants, XTransfer may be at risk of being robbed of its market share in the field of B2B cross-border payments.
In recent years, the business penetration of leading payment giants such as Lianlian Digital, PingPong, Kongzongyunhui and Wanlihui in the B2C cross-border payment field has matured, and they have gradually turned to the B2B cross-border payment market, and industry competition has further intensified.
In terms of product layout, the above-mentioned comprehensive payment institutions have successively launched foreign trade B2B solutions.
Especially Lianlian Digital, as the only cross-border payment company listed on the Hong Kong stock market, its global payment TPV will reach 452.4 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 60.7%.
Although Lianlian Digital did not separately disclose B2B cross-border payment TPV, its product system is richer than XTransfer and its comprehensive competitive advantage is obvious.
Since Wanlihui became an Ant-owned brand in 2019, it has focused on cross-border payment solutions for small and medium-sized foreign trade companies. Its core advantage lies in its deep connection with the Alibaba ecosystem (such as 1688 cross-border and international stations).
Returning to the sustainable development of XTransfer itself, the prospectus clearly states that the company also faces risks such as changes in the global economic situation, exchange rate fluctuations, and compliance supervision.
In terms of compliance supervision, the prospectus pointed out that due to the strict and different compliance requirements of various countries and regions, including but not limited to trade protection (including import and export controls, tariffs), data privacy and protection, fund transfer and foreign exchange controls, etc.
XTransfer’s compliance investment costs may increase to adapt to regulatory requirements.
After nearly ten years, XTransfer has built the world’s largest B2B cross-border payment platform.
However, with a single product matrix and a main focus on the B2B track, whether it can maintain high profit growth is a question that needs to be answered when it goes public.
Under the leadership of Deng Guobiao, “Bullet Finance” will continue to observe when XTransfer can knock on the door of the capital market.
