MULTI-CURRENCY payments platform YouTrip has raised a US$50 million Series B round, as the startup rides the wave of recovery in tourism.

New investor venture capital firm Lightspeed Ventures led the round of funding, which is purely equity.

The funding will go into expanding into new markets, with YouTrip earmarking Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam; plans are to launch in Malaysia by the first quarter of 2024.

Caecilia Chu, chief executive officer and co-founder of YouTrip, said: “So now, it’s really time for us to hit the gas pedal on market expansion, and one of the key goals is South-east Asia.”

Product offerings will be expanded with the funding. Retail customers will be given more foreign-exchange offerings and be able to remit money to more countries; commercial product offerings will include more automation to aid small and medium-sized enterprises to digitalise their financial workflows.

“We are looking into setting up a team for AI (artificial intelligence), with more smart budgeting and interactive features on the front end, which we can push through in the coming quarters,” said Chu.

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YouTrip will also be hiring across the region, not just in its Singapore headquarters. In looking for people to fill these roles, the location of the talent matters less because the startup is pushing for employees to come from across the region.

“We want to have that culture set up from an organisational perspective, to serve a regional set of customers,” she said.

The startup, having felt the brunt of the travel curbs in the past few years with the Covid pandemic, aims to ride the wave as tourism turns the corner. Chu said she expects YouTrip to ride the tourism tailwind for the next six to 12 months, given that spending among consumers has gone up.

Increased spending aside, YouTrip has also noted organic growth among its retail and commercial customers, as both groups are travelling for leisure and business.

“Travel has been a very helpful tailwind for our business, but we are really diversifying our business, not just targeting the travel segment. In e-commerce usage, there is good growth in both online and offline transactions,” she said.