The Stealth Battle Among "Water Sellers" in Cross-Border E-commerce in 2025: Behind 33 Rounds of Financing, Who Is Reaping the New Industry Dividends?
In the 1850s, the American West witnessed an unprecedented gold rush. Countless gold prospectors flocked to the mining areas with dreams in their hearts, hoping to be favored by fortune and strike it rich overnight. However, most of them returned empty - handed. In the end, it was often the "water sellers" who provided them with shovels, jeans, and accommodation that built more stable and prosperous business empires.
Today, in the "new gold rush" of going global represented by cross - border e - commerce, this scenario seems to be repeating itself. While cross - border enterprises are competing fiercely in the global market, the more low - key yet crucial "water sellers" behind them - cross - border e - commerce ecosystem service providers - have quietly become the new darlings of the capital feast.
In 2025, as cross - border brands withstood the headwinds in the industry and forged ahead, the ecosystem service providers in areas such as operation, marketing, logistics, payment, and customer service that accompanied them also received intensive capital bets.
According to incomplete statistics, as of September this year, there were at least 33 financing events among global cross - border e - commerce ecosystem service providers, a year - on - year increase of 74%. In contrast, according to data from Yibang Power, there were only 19 financing events involving ecosystem service providers in the first three quarters of last year.
Overall, in the field of cross - border e - commerce ecosystem services, the capital market has maintained a high level of investment enthusiasm. Both new - type service providers driven by AI technology and established service providers rooted in traditional business types have received real financial support from the capital circle this year, getting the "vote of trust" from investors.
Overview: Nearly half of the financing projects are in the hundreds of millions, and growing enterprises are the most popular
According to incomplete statistics from Yibang Power, in the first three quarters of 2025, including various types of segmented services (platforms, website building, marketing, operation, logistics, financial payment, customer service), there were at least 33 investment and financing activities in the cross - border e - commerce ecosystem service field, involving 32 cross - border enterprises and two IPO events.
Divided by financing time, there were 7 financing events in the first quarter, 9 in the second quarter, and 17 in the third quarter, showing an overall fluctuating upward trend in the industry. August was the peak period for investment and financing, with 7 related financing events occurring within a single month.
In terms of financing scale, the financing in the first three quarters of this year was mainly in the millions/tens of millions and hundreds of millions levels. Among them, there were 14 financing events in the tens of millions level and 11 in the hundreds of millions level. Leading enterprises gathered a large amount of funds, and more than half of them were leading enterprises in segmented tracks that received investment from US dollar funds.
Among the non - IPO financing projects, the top ten enterprises with the largest financing scale are:
Airwallex - $300 million, Whatnot - $265 million, ManyChat - $140 million, Silicon - based Intelligence - hundreds of millions of yuan, UniUni - $70 million, KUN - more than $50 million, Fandings International - tens of millions of dollars, ShipBob - $40 million, Swap - $40 million, Instant - $18 million.
Their financing scales have all exceeded 100 million yuan. Compared with the financing performance of service providers in the same period last year, this year's financing events have increased significantly in both scale and density.
From the perspective of financing rounds, growing enterprises are the main group to receive financing.
Specifically, there were a total of 5 financing events in the seed round/angel round/"angel round +", 10 in the Pre - A round/A round/A+ round, 4 in the B round/B+ round, 3 in the C round/C+ round, 4 in other higher - level rounds, 4 strategic financings, 1 project in the IPO process, and 2 successful IPO financings. Among them, the financing events of growing enterprises (Pre - A round, A round, B round, and C round) accounted for more than 50%.
The proportion of start - up enterprises that received financing was relatively small, with only 5. A representative one is Lynx AI, an AI Agent service provider.
The company focuses on providing "AI product manager" services based on the Agentic AI framework for cross - border e - commerce enterprises. Through its self - developed intelligent agents, it creates full - link solutions for sellers from market opportunity insight, product innovation portfolio optimization to market launch strategies.
Compared with start - up enterprises with unstable businesses, growing enterprises in later rounds are obviously more attractive to investors. Many of the invested enterprises are established players in their respective tracks and have strong market influence, such as Fandings International, Airwallex, and Silicon - based Intelligence.
Among the enterprises going through the IPO process, Pattern, a cross - border e - commerce acceleration platform that was successfully listed on the NASDAQ in the United States, is particularly worthy of attention.
As one of the very few cross - border e - commerce ecosystem service providers that can be listed on the US stock market, Pattern has the dual identities of a "big seller" and a "service provider". Relying on advanced data technology and channel operation experience, it has built a business model different from traditional agency operation services - "purchasing - style cooperation".
Under this model, Pattern directly buys out brand products and is fully responsible for their operation, deeply binding its interests with the brand. It provides a one - stop solution for the brand, including operation, channels, marketing, and fulfillment, forming a more stable business closed - loop with more sales touchpoints.
In addition, it is worth noting that among the enterprises that completed financing in the first three quarters of this year, two also received investment in the same period last year - UniUni and Fandings International, both from the logistics field.
Capital trends: Marketing and logistics remain the core hotspots, while operation and payment industries are emerging
Looking at the data from the first three quarters, the capital preferences in the cross - border e - commerce service field are highly differentiated. Marketing and logistics service providers are undoubtedly the main forces attracting capital, leading in the number of financing events. Operation and financial payment service providers form the second echelon with slightly less popularity, while customer service, R & D, and platform - type enterprises are relatively cold.
▎Marketing services
In the field of cross - border e - commerce ecosystem services, marketing service providers were the most favored investment targets by capital in 2025.
Among the 33 financing events in this statistics, marketing service providers accounted for 11, outperforming other tracks. It is particularly worth noting that in these financing projects, nearly half were in the early rounds (below the A round), and many of the invested enterprises were new forces established in the past three years.
Ultimately, the rapid rise of marketing service providers is closely related to the efficiency innovation after generative AI crossed the "technological singularity". The reason why they were able to break through first in the new technological environment mainly lies in the high degree of compatibility between their business core and AI technology.
The core of marketing work lies in content creation, personalized interaction, and effect optimization, which is seamlessly connected with the large - scale, low - cost content generation and complex decision - making ability that generative AI excels at. AI can bring immediate efficiency improvements and replace the traditional labor - dependent model.
With an existing technological foundation, entrepreneurs only need to explore application methods. The commercial route of "marketing + AI" has the characteristics of low threshold and high return, naturally attracting a large amount of capital and entrepreneurs, giving rise to a group of "pioneers".
Specifically, in the financing cluster of marketing service providers, according to the technological level and application direction, they can be mainly divided into two types:
The first is the automated advertising and marketing system, which is committed to creating a full - link advertising solution integrating content production, data analysis, and advertising strategies. Representative enterprises include Jirui Technology, Instant, and Sandwich Lab.
The second is the SaaS - like platform, which focuses on providing merchants with daily management and continuous optimization services for marketing work. Pattern and Captain BI are the main players.
In addition, AI digital human service providers represented by "Silicon - based Intelligence" and service providers like "Duhezhizhong" that provide comprehensive cross - border live - streaming solutions also occupy a place in the financing camp. Together, they form an important "infrastructure layer" in the cross - border e - commerce marketing system.
▎Logistics services
Logistics service providers, as an indispensable backbone in the cross - border e - commerce ecosystem, have always attracted market attention. In the financing events in this statistics, 10 were contributed by this category, second only to marketing service providers.
For the cross - border logistics industry, the tariff war is undoubtedly an important backdrop in 2025. The tariff reforms during Trump's second term are intensifying the turmoil in global trade logistics.
However, chaos is also a touchstone. It has created a development window for those logistics service providers that truly have business resilience, advanced technological strength, and profound industry resources. When uncertainty becomes the norm, service providers that can provide certainty in the chaos demonstrate their irreplaceable and scarce value.
The ten logistics enterprises that received investment this year together outline a complete ecological map of the cross - border logistics field. They cover all aspects of the fulfillment chain, with different models and highly diversified business types:
Among them, there are Shunyou Logistics and Maple Supply Chain, which focus on direct - delivery logistics and end - to - end distribution. There is also Fandings International, a leading player in the third - party overseas warehouse field. In the middle - and last - mile delivery fields, there are also Warp, Oway, and UniUni from North America. In terms of warehouse automation and capacity integration/distribution management, there are Geek+ and Swap.
▎Operation and financial payment services
In addition to the "dual cores" - marketing and logistics that support the cross - border e - commerce ecosystem, the operation and financial payment tracks also attracted the attention of capital in 2025.
In terms of operation services, the enterprises that received financing this year cover a wide range of businesses, spanning multiple segmented tracks from website building, market insight, product planning to brand incubation and live - streaming operation.
Representative enterprises such as Shulex, Lynx AI, Captain BI, and Pattern have all built comprehensive service systems driven by AI, presenting themselves in a "platform - like" model integrating multiple tools.
In terms of financial payment services, a total of seven enterprises received financing this year, absorbing more than 2.6 billion yuan in huge funds. Among them, Airwallex alone received $300 million in the F round, which is the largest single financing project in this statistics.
In the context of the significant decline of global primary market valuations in recent years and the general undervaluation of Fintech companies, the reason why Airwallex has been recognized by the capital circle mainly lies in its strong performance and solid global resource layout:
Data shows that as of March this year, its annualized revenue exceeded $720 million, a year - on - year increase of 90%. The global annualized transaction payment volume exceeded $130 billion, achieving a leap - forward growth compared with $50 billion in 2022. At the same time, it holds payment licenses and permits in more than 60 countries/regions, leading among cross - border payment service providers.
Two core driving forces support its high - speed growth: the in - depth integration of AI technology in risk control, operation, and other aspects; and the strategic transformation from "serving Chinese enterprises going global" to "empowering global local enterprises in cross - border operations". The former significantly improves operational efficiency, while the latter greatly broadens the niche market.
In addition to established service providers like Airwallex, many "new faces" have also emerged this year. For example, Send Payments, which focuses on providing embedded cross - border payment solutions, KUN, which provides B2B e - commerce payment services under the stablecoin system, and ApexPay, which focuses on cross - border encrypted payment and multi - currency settlement.
New hot words in cross - border services: AI Agent, flexible fulfillment, and stablecoin payment
In 2025, many new concepts, technologies, and models emerged in the cross - border e - commerce ecosystem service field, bringing a new round of efficiency revolution to the industry.
Among them, AI Agent is perhaps one of the hottest keywords.
AI Agent, or "artificial intelligence agent", is an intelligent program that can understand user instructions, independently plan and execute complex tasks, and finally achieve goals. Compared with traditional operation tools with a "one - input - one - output" model, its core advantage lies in "autonomy" and "multi - step workflow" capabilities. With a single input of instructions, it can drive the program to independently implement a complete and complex task through thinking, decision - making, and the use of various tools.
Observing the enterprises that received investment this year, a significant common feature is that many service providers are centered around "AI Agent". Their businesses are generally concentrated in areas such as content marketing and market insight. This type of ecosystem service highly depends on the ability to process massive amounts of text data and conduct comprehensive reasoning - which is exactly the natural advantage of the AI Agent technology architecture.
Take Shulex as an example. As a solid "ally" behind global brands such as Anker Innovations, AfterShokz, Panasonic, DJI, and Baseus, it not only provides automated customer service solutions through AI Agent but also deeply participates in VOC (voice of the customer) insight to further assist customers in optimizing product planning.
Similarly, Sandwich Lab, which also launched an AI Agent product, focuses on advertising and marketing agency services.
Its core product, "Lexi", can fully manage advertising placement tasks on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram throughout the process, covering the entire link from market research, target audience positioning, creative generation to advertising release, and continuously improve conversion effects in a way similar to "quantitative trading".
In addition, a number of "specialized" AI agent products for specific overseas user - reaching scenarios have emerged in the market, such as personalized email and