Ant International, the global business arm of Chinese fintech giant Ant Group, is in early-stage talks to raise approximately $1 billion from investors, including existing shareholders. The move, first reported by Bloomberg, is widely seen as a strategic step toward a potential initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong later this year. The fundraising is expected to value Ant International at over $10 billion, reflecting growing confidence in the company's global expansion, particularly in cross-border payments and blockchain-based financial services.
The funding round would mark a significant milestone more than four years after Ant Group's record-breaking $37 billion IPO was suspended by Chinese regulators in November 2020. Since then, the company has undergone comprehensive restructuring to comply with financial oversight. Ant International now operates from Singapore with its own board structure, generating approximately $3.7 billion in revenue during 2025—a roughly 25% year-over-year increase. Although it contributes only about 10% of Ant Group's total revenue, its growth has outstripped domestic operations, driven by eight consecutive profitable quarters and rising cross-border transaction activity.
Ant Digital Technologies, the blockchain subsidiary, is central to the company's forward-looking strategy. It is developing an AI agent payment platform, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization solutions, and Jovay, a Layer 2 blockchain network. These initiatives place Ant International at the intersection of traditional finance and decentralized technology. RWA tokenization has gained major traction in 2025–2026 as financial institutions seek to improve liquidity and transparency for bonds, real estate, and commodities through blockchain.
The cross-border payments engine, Alipay+, anchors Ant International's network, linking local wallets and payment systems across more than 100 markets, connecting over 150 million merchants with over 2 billion consumers. Complementary services like Antom (merchant acquiring), WorldFirst (small business support), and Bettr (lending and FX tools) further broaden the ecosystem. On the blockchain front, Ant International has expanded Whale, its treasury and settlement platform, which moved over $1 trillion through its network in 2024—about one-third of that via blockchain rails. The company has tested Whale with Standard Chartered for Singapore dollar liquidity transfers and participated in Hong Kong's Ensemble Sandbox for tokenization use cases. Notably, it has integrated USDC (USD Coin) from Circle into parts of its cross-border payment infrastructure, enabling selected transactions to settle via blockchain rather than traditional banking channels. Ant International also plans to apply for stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Luxembourg, signaling its next growth phase.
A successful fundraising and eventual IPO would provide a clear valuation benchmark for other Chinese fintech firms navigating similar regulatory landscapes and underscore the deepening integration of digital asset infrastructure into mainstream finance.
