Ant Group’s international division is weighing a fundraising round of roughly $1 billion to fuel its global expansion. The move would mark a significant capital injection for a unit that has quietly become one of the most interesting stories in cross-border fintech.

Ant International, the Singapore-headquartered spin-off handling everything outside mainland China, has been profitable for eight consecutive quarters. The fundraise, if it materializes, looks less like survival capital and more like pouring gasoline on something already burning hot.

A payments empire in the making

Ant International’s numbers tell a compelling story. The unit pulled in an estimated $3.7 billion in revenue for 2025, representing roughly 25% growth year-over-year. That’s not bad for a division that accounts for about 10% of Ant Group’s total revenue.

The engine behind those numbers is Alipay+, a platform that now connects over 150 million merchants with more than 2 billion consumers across more than 100 markets. Rather than building its own wallet in every country, Ant International partners with local payment systems and wallets, stitching them together into a network that lets a tourist from Thailand pay a merchant in Italy without either party thinking twice about currency conversion.

The company isn’t new to big fundraising either. Ant International raised approximately $14 billion back in June 2018, and followed that with a $1 billion round specifically targeting India and Southeast Asia in November 2019.

Where blockchain and crypto enter the picture

The company has invested heavily in blockchain infrastructure through initiatives like the Whale platform and AntChain. The Whale platform alone reportedly handles around one-third of global payments flowing through Ant’s network.

In 2025, Ant Group partnered with Circle to incorporate USDC into its cross-border payment flows. Instead of routing money through traditional correspondent banking networks, transactions can settle using a dollar-pegged stablecoin on blockchain rails.

Chairman Eric Jing reinforced this direction at the November 2025 Singapore FinTech Festival, where he emphasized the role of AI and tokenized settlements in promoting inclusive financial growth.

What this means for investors

The restructuring Ant Group undertook in 2024, which gave Ant International its own dedicated board, also signals something important. After years of regulatory turbulence following the pulled IPO in 2020, the parent company appears to be entering a more stable phase.