ShardLab, a fintech venture studio backed by global investment firm Hashed, has made a strategic investment in StoreHub, one of Southeast Asia’s leading commerce and payments platforms. 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 in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Japan, serving more than 20,000 merchant locations. Founded in Malaysia in 2013 as a cloud point-of-sale provider, the company now processes more than 200 million transactions annually, representing approximately US$3.5 billion in annual transaction value.

ShardLab was established through a strategic partnership between Hashed, a Seoul-headquartered investment firm known for its focus on blockchain and Web3, and SCBX, the holding company of Siam Commercial Bank and 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.

Southeast Asia offers a strong environment for the partnership. The region combines a large population underserved by traditional financial services with a young demographic profile and widespread mobile usage. It is also a competitive one: banks, e-wallet operators and regional commerce platforms compete heavily for merchant acceptance, and digital payments have been among the fastest-growing segments of the region’s digital economy. Loyalty and rewards programs are already a central part of how those platforms attract and retain users, which is the space the new venture will enter.

The joint venture gives the two companies a structure to test new models with real merchants and consumers, and to scale only what demonstrably works. Specific products and initiatives will be announced as and when they launch; which products emerge first, and in which of StoreHub’s four markets they land, will be the earliest concrete indicators of the venture’s direction.

Wai Hong Fong, CEO of StoreHub, said: “StoreHub has spent over a decade building the commerce and payments infrastructure that merchants across Asia use to run their businesses every day. ShardLab and Hashed have spent years at the forefront of payments and rewards technology, and this partnership is about bringing that work to real merchants at scale. Anything we build together must pass the same test that everything at StoreHub passes: does it help merchants sell more? The larger shift within StoreHub continues alongside this: we are rebuilding our product around AI, so that a three-person restaurant can operate with the capability of a thirty-person one.”

Hojin Kim, CEO of ShardLab, said: “We have spent the past few years testing how new payment and rewards technologies can improve everyday consumer experiences. StoreHub gives us something fundamentally different: a distribution network of more than 20,000 real-world merchant locations. This partnership is about moving from pilots to scale and building products that create measurable value for both consumers and merchants.”