ShardLab, a fintech venture studio backed by global investment firm Hashed, has made a strategic investment in StoreHub, a Malaysia-based 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, the duo said in a statement on Monday.

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.

StoreHub operates across Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Japan, serving 20,000+ merchant locations.

Its platform processes more than 200 million transactions annually, representing approximately $3.5 billion in annual transaction value.

ShardLab was established through a strategic partnership between Hashed 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.

According to the statement, Southeast Asia offers a particularly strong environment for the partnership.

The region combines a large population underserved by traditional financial services with a young population and widespread mobile usage.

“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 artificial intelligence (AI), so that a three-person restaurant can operate with the capability of a thirty-person one,” said Wai Hong Fong, Chief Executive Officer of StoreHub.

Hojin Kim, Chief Executive Officer of ShardLab, said they 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,” he added.

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