Singapore – Southeast Asia’s small-and-medium enterprise (SME) digital financing platform, Funding Societies, has acquired CardUp, Singapore-based payments solution. Through the move, the company will acquire CardUp’s payments capabilities such as card payments to non-card accepting recipients (domestic and cross-border), online payments acceptance, invoice automation tools, and its licenses and integrations with renowned third-party business software.
The acquisition will see CardUp’s payment services complementing Funding Societies’ lending products, to offer a unified financial experience for SMEs across SEA, enabling SMEs to manage and pay expenses, receive payments, and borrow funds all within one seamless digital platform.
This move comes off the back of Funding Societies’ recent Series C+ raise of US$294m in February 2022, of which US$144m was raised in equity, and its recent investment into Bank Index in Indonesia, the launch of business virtual card Elevate in Singapore, and entry into Vietnam, strengthening the company’s suite of financial services for SMEs.
Kelvin Teo, co-founder and group CEO of Funding Societies-Modalku, shared, “CardUp has a great cultural and strategic fit. Acquiring CardUp enables us to leapfrog and accelerate our market leadership in the regional FinTech space, integrating payments capabilities, enhanced user experience and local licenses to our digital lending experience across key markets. We are excited to work with the CardUp team and are honoured to join forces with them.”
Meanwhile, Nicki Ramsay, founder and CEO of CardUp, noted that they have long recognised Funding Societies as the regional leader in SME financing and a complementary counterpart to their expertise in payments.
“This acquisition reflects strong strategic and cultural synergy with both parties aligned on the mission to help SMEs improve the way they operate their business and manage cash flow. We are confident that CardUp and our employees are in good hands with Kelvin and his team and are excited to work together on this next chapter of growth,” said Ramsay.
Funding Societies said that once the acquisition is finalised and approved by the regulators, it will be welcoming Ramsay into its management team to lead its payments business while retaining all CardUp’s employees across Asia. CardUp will continue to operate its consumer and business services and maintain its long-standing relationships with card networks, issuers, and media partners. Both will be tapping into strong synergies in the form of complementary talent, technologies, as well as bank and technology partnerships to further empower SMEs in SEA.
