ShardLab invests in StoreHub, forms joint venture

ShardLab, a fintech venture studio backed by global investment firm Hashid, has made a strategic investment in StoreHub, a leading Southeast Asian commerce and payments platform. The two companies will also form a joint venture to explore new consumer payment and rewards experiences for merchants and consumers across the region. StoreHub operates across Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Japan, serving over 20,000 merchant locations and processing more than 200 million transactions annually, representing approximately US$3.5 billion in annual transaction value. ShardLab was established through a strategic partnership between Hashid and SCBX, one of Thailand's largest financial groups, to build and commercialize products at the intersection of frontier technologies and financial services. The partnership with StoreHub connects that work to a scaled, real-world commerce network for the first time. The joint venture will allow the two companies to test new models with real merchants and consumers, scaling only what demonstrably works. Specific products and initiatives will be announced as they launch. StoreHub's CEO Wai Hong Fong emphasized that the partnership must help merchants sell more, while ShardLab's CEO Hojin Kim highlighted the move from pilots to scale, leveraging StoreHub's distribution network of over 20,000 merchant locations.