Tag: Funding Societies

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Funding Societies has expanded its partnership with foodpanda to introduce tailored financing opportunities for Bumiputera merchants in Malaysia.

Under this initiative, foodpanda merchants who meet the eligibility criteria can access financing of up to MYR100k (US$22,207). The program offers an attractive annual interest rate of 2% and a flexible repayment period of up to 24 months.

This exclusive financing program is designed to provide local entrepreneurs with the resources needed to expand their businesses in a challenging economic landscape. The partnership builds on the success of previous initiatives, which have supported 500 foodpanda merchants, and aims to further boost growth for underserved micro and small businesses within the foodpanda ecosystem.

By offering reduced financing costs and much-needed capital, the initiative seeks to enhance cash flow and level the playing field for Bumiputera entrepreneurs, empowering them to scale their operations and thrive in the competitive market.

Chai Kien Poon, country head at Funding Societies Malaysia, said, “To support these businesses, particularly MSMEs, access to cash flow is crucialWe are hopeful that this partnership between Funding Societies and foodpanda can better assist and scale underserved, creditworthy small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in this industry.”

Meanwhile, Tan Ming Luk, managing director of foodpanda Malaysia, emphasized the company’s commitment to equipping merchants with the necessary tools and resources to succeed in the current competitive landscape.

“This initiative not only provides access to much-needed capital at an affordable rate but also reinforces our commitment to supporting local entrepreneurs, especially as they prepare for the upcoming festive season. Together, we aim to drive meaningful growth and resilience for our foodpanda merchant community,” he said.

Singapore – Funding Societies, a digital finance platform, has secured a US$25 million investment from Cool Japan Fund (CJF), Japan’s sovereign wealth fund. The investment will help the company support SMEs across Southeast Asia (SEA), particularly in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

To enhance its business in financing SMEs, Funding Societies will funnel the investment to help businesses receive their payments faster. It will also use artificial intelligence to streamline lending origination processes.

Additionally, Funding Societies and CJF are forging a partnership to financially support Japanese companies in SEA. Aimed at boosting commercial relations for Japanese SMEs across the region and expanding their businesses, it will consequently promote Japanese lifestyle and culture.

The investment marks CJF’s first funding into a fintech company in SEA.

“We are excited to be backing Funding Societies through this investment. Their track record of supporting SMEs in Southeast Asia well places them to help Japanese companies overcome challenges when entering new overseas markets – particularly in this region,” Kenichi Kawasaki, president and chief executive officer of Cool Japan Fund, said.

“With the shift of interest from Japanese firms steering towards Southeast Asia, we believe our partnership with Funding Societies through this investment will grow the overseas demand of Japanese products and services, in turn, benefitting Japan’s economy as well as the local SMEs doing business with Japanese companies,” Kawasaki added.

Kelvin Teo, co-founder and group chief executive officer of Funding Societies | Modalku, said, “We’re honored for the commitment from Cool Japan to collaborate and support Japanese companies expanding overseas. Many businesses we serve in Southeast Asia are Japanese firms, suppliers and/ or customers to them. Together with CJF, we intend to further strengthen these ties.”

Singapore – Following the company’s commitment to enhancing financial accessibility to MSMEs, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, in collaboration with CGC Digital, has recently announced a strategic investment in Funding Societies, a small and medium enterprise digital finance platform in Southeast Asia.

The investment targets expansion in areas beyond Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Penang, and Johor, with plans to serve more than 25, 000 MSMEs across Malaysia by the end of 2025. This move intends to provide better financial access, spur growth, and facilitate scalability, contributing to job creation and income development for the individuals employed by these businesses.

This initiative is also accompanied by the company’s goal to extend the reach of Islamic financing solutions introduced in Malaysia earlier this year.

Khazanah’s investment is in line with its Dana Impak mandate, a key component of its Advancing Malaysia strategy. This investment aligns with the government’s vision of improving the performance of MSMEs by providing increased access to financing, fostering opportunities, and driving socioeconomic growth in rural, semi-urban, and underserved communities with limited access to financial services.

The collaboration with CGC Digital, on the other hand, is aimed at influencing the Malaysian MSME ecosystem, given Khazanah’s simultaneous investment in funding societies.

In particular, this collaboration encompasses digital guarantee products on the platform, extending sustained support to Malaysian micro and small businesses in securing long-term financing. With a digital-first approach and leveraged alternative data, the digital guarantee product aims to provide micro and small businesses with more extensive and cost-effective access to financing.

Speaking about this feat, Dato’ Amirul Feisal Wan Zahir, managing director at Khazanah, said, “The investment in funding societies reflects our commitment to fostering financial inclusion and bridging the funding gap, especially within the MSME community. Being the backbone of Malaysia’s economy and contributing nearly half of the nation’s employment, MSMEs are both critical and critically underserved. Hence, this investment aligns with our mission of contributing to nation-building and socioeconomic growth.”.

Yushida Husin, CEO at CGC Digital, also expressed her delight with the recent collaboration, stating, “CGC Digital sees this investment as a strategic win for Malaysian MSMEs. We share Dana Impak’s vision and believe that, by working together with Khazanah, CGC Digital can advance financial inclusion among underserved and unserved MSMEs in the digital ecosystem.

“CGC Digital seeks to push the envelope by developing a suite of innovative digital guarantee products for thin-file MSMEs that can be offered together with Funding Societies’ financing products to increase their chance of obtaining much-needed financing,” she added.

Speaking about the strategic investment, on the other hand, Datuk Mohd Zamree Mohd Ishak, board member at CGC Digital and president and CEO of CGC Digital’s parent company, Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad, shared his sentiment as well, saying, “By joining forces with Khazanah and Funding Societies, this strategic investment by CGC Digital shows CGC Group’s commitment to taking Malaysian MSMEs, especially thin-file MSMEs, to the next level.”

Kelvin Teo, co-founder and group CEO at Funding Societies, said, “We are honoured to receive support from Khazanah and CGC Digital, who share our conviction to impact MSMEs. This is a testament to our commitment towards extending credit to reach more underserved MSMEs. We would also progressively offer MSMEs more cash flow management solutions to power their growth.”

“This is where funding societies seek to step in by serving the region’s MSMEs’ cash management challenges and needs with our extensive reach and broad range of short-term financing solutions,” Teo concluded.

Singapore – Small and medium enterprise (SME) digital financing platform Funding Societies has signed a US$50m credit facility with HSBC Singapore to drive SME growth in the Southeast Asia region, especially underserved SMEs.

Through this new facility, the fintech lender will be able to channel the funds via its range of tailored financing solutions across SME segments across all its five markets.

Kelvin Teo, co-founder and group CEO of Funding Societies and Modalku, said, “We’re honoured to receive such a sizable facility from a global bank such as HSBC. This marks a critical milestone for us and is a testament to our credit track record through COVID-19.” 

He added, “HSBC’s foresight, global capabilities and scalable approach further equips us to better satisfy the underserved SME segments in the region. We appreciate HSBC’s confidence in us and are excited about this signing.”

The signing will also enable HSBC to extend its global capabilities by tapping on the underserved segments across the region. Furthermore, HSBC will act as the structuring bank, lender, facility and security agent in providing a flexible, scalable and pan-regional financing solution to support Funding Societies’ business expansion in the region.

Meanwhile, Regina Lee, Head of Commercial Banking, HSBC Singapore, said, “As a leading SME digital financing platform, Funding Societies is playing an important role in contributing to Southeast Asia’s new economic growth by driving broader financial inclusion and supporting homegrown companies which are the building blocks of these economies. We are thrilled to support Funding Societies as they expand their reach to serving underserved SMEs in the region.”

This announcement comes at the heels of Funding Societies’ most recent acquisition of regional digital payments platform CardUp, subject to regulatory approvals, as part of a series of efforts to diversify its services beyond lending.

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.

Singapore – Small-and-medium enterprise (SME) digital financing platform Funding Societies has announced their latest market expansion in Vietnam, marking the company’s fifth market expansion. Said expansion aims to tap into the country’s growing yet financially underserved SME landscape.

Kelvin Teo, co-founder and group CEO at Funding Societies, said, “Since our inception in 2015, our vision is to uplift societies in Southeast Asia. Hence, Vietnam has always been part of our roadmap. This is an opportune time as we ride out of COVID-19, build a solid team with local finTech veteran Ryan Galloway, and secure investment from tech giant VNG. We believe that Vietnam will be one of our largest markets given its enormous potential.”

Earlier this year, Vietnamese tech giant VNG Corporation invested US$22.5m in Funding Societies as part of the fintech company’s US$294m series C+ fundraise, of which US$144m was raised in equity and US$150m in debt lines. Funding Societies also received the support of other notable investors in the funding round, including SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Rapyd Ventures, EDBI, Indies Capital, Ascend Vietnam Ventures, and K3 Ventures, among others. 

Through the aforementioned funding, VNG will help Funding Societies to quickly adapt to the local market so it can provide solutions tailored to the unique needs of Vietnamese businesses.

Meanwhile, Ryan Galloway, country director of Funding Societies Vietnam, commented, “Vietnam SMEs don’t have the same access to venture and early-stage capital markets as other Southeast Asian markets, but the Vietnam market is equally as competitive, so Vietnamese entrepreneurs are trained to do more with less. We see lots of opportunity in Vietnam and we’re excited to support the country’s burgeoning SME landscape as we continue to serve the needs of millions of SMEs across Southeast Asia.”

Recently, Funding Societies have invested alongside automotive car marketplace platform CARRO at Bank Index, an Indonesian national Bank. The move serves as a significant milestone in Funding Societies’ entry into the neobanking space.

Singapore — SME digital financing platform Funding Societies, also known as Modalku in Indonesia, alongside Southeast Asian automotive marketplace platform Carro, has announced its investment in Bank Index, an Indonesian national Bank. The move serves as a significant milestone in Funding Societies’ entry into the neobanking space and its drive to offer more high-impact digital financial services to underserved businesses in the region.

With a focus on SME Banking, Bank Index is a privately-owned national Bank with a strong nationwide footprint of 53 office network in major commercial areas across Jabodetabek, Java, Sumatra, Bali and Batam. Bank Index also conducts business across a range of commercial supply chains while offering mobile and internet banking services to its clients.

Kelvin Teo, co-founder and group CEO of Funding Societies | Modalku, said that their investment and partnership with Bank Index will support Funding Societies’ business strategy into neobanking. Teo adds that Bank Index shares the vision of empowering and developing SMEs.

“Since 2015, Funding Societies has been actively partnering with banks across the region, and our partnership with Bank Index will take FinTech-bank collaboration to the next level. Our complementary capabilities will enable us to serve SMEs better across banking, payments, lending and digital services to uplift Southeast Asia’s economies through small businesses,” Teo said.

On the co-investment, Jeremy Ong, CEO of CARRO Indonesia, said, “Bank Index’s plan for a sophisticated fintech industry, with a human touch at its core, aligns with our own vision of building capabilities and infrastructure that will serve customers across the automotive ecosystem — whether it’s buying, selling, SME financing, insurance or more. As such, co-investment was a natural choice. We strongly believe in the value of this partnership and are excited to be a part of this journey moving forward.”

Meanwhile, Gimin Sumalim, president director of Bank Index, added that they are delighted to welcome Funding Societies and Carro as shareholders of Bank Index.

“Together, we will partner to forge strategic initiatives based on our shared vision and mission, primarily to greatly expand our services to our target market. This collective step is also a reference point to continue pursuing comprehensive digital transformation.”

Singapore – SME digital financing platform Funding Societies has announced the launch of ‘Virtual Card Elevate’, a virtual card solution for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Singapore. Said virtual card is available on a credit line on the platform’s website and mobile app, and entitles qualified MSMEs to interest-free credit for a period of up to 55 days.

This launch comes on the back of Funding Societies’ recent US$294m Series C+ fundraise, some of which it has channelled to such new strategic products, solidifying its position as a one-stop shop for the region’s MSME banking needs.

The card is enabled by banking-as-a-service provider, MatchMove, and developed in partnership with Mastercard. It offers small businesses rapid access to credit limits, where approvals of applications are given within one business day. Business owners can easily apply for the card and credit line via Funding Societies’ website using Myinfo Business, and thereafter begin tracking and managing all expenditure within the platform’s dedicated mobile app.

Shrawan Saraogi, group head of strategy for new business at Funding Societies, said, “In an environment where traditional providers issue corporate lines to only large businesses with a strong credit track record, or offer debit cards with deposit accounts, Funding Societies’ Elevate serves an urgent and important need of micro and small businesses in Singapore who need flexible credit to pay for their expenses. When business owners do not take on personal liability on their own credit cards, their business becomes more sustainable.”

Since this financing solution launched in January, Funding Societies has approved over S$1m in credit limits to small businesses across the nation. Within two months, almost one quarter of that limit has been used by its clients for company purchases and supplier payments. Elevate serves enterprises across all verticals, including the F&B, retail, e-commerce, logistics, and technology sectors.

The card also entails Mastercard privileges such as a ‘Corporate Liability Waiver’ feature that protects MSMEs against unauthorised charges being made to their business card accounts. This is in line with Funding Societies’ expansion into financial offerings for MSMEs beyond lending, like expense management.

Singapore – Funding Societies, SME digital financing platform in SEA, which goes by Modalku in Indonesia, has raised US$144m in an oversubscribed Series C+ equity round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2; with new investors, notably Vietnamese tech giant VNG Corporation, Rapyd Ventures, Asia-based global investor EDBI, Indies Capital, K3 Ventures, and Ascend Vietnam Ventures. 

The company has also received US$150m in debt lines from institutional lenders across Europe, the United States, and Asia, some of which have been drawn down since 2021. This comes on the back of its US$45 million Series C raised between 2020 and 2021.

The company believes that the funds solidify Funding Societies’ position as a market leader in digital financing, and propels its expense management, and B2B payments services for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across Southeast Asia. 

Since 2019, Funding Societies has expanded its suite of financial services beyond lending and plans to bring its operations to more locations in Southeast Asia within the next 12 months.

In October, the company has also announced that it has raised US$18m in debt for funding led by a trio syndicate of financial institutions, including lending company Helicap Investments.

Funding Societies aims to solve MSMEs’ key pain points for growth, such as the challenge in obtaining business loans from traditional financial institutions due to a lack of a credit track record or collaterals to pledge. Funding Societies offers microloans from US$500 up to US$1.5m which can be disbursed within 24 hours. 

Co-founder and Group CEO, Kelvin Teo, shared that a common misconception is that the company competes with banks. 

“The reality is we ‘compete’ with savings, friends and families, and personal credit cards. There is a huge unsecured financing gap because it takes patience and focus, or you risk losing a lot of money. Having proven our AI-led credit capabilities in an unprecedented financial crisis, we look to serve SMEs even better with neo banking and deeper regional presence in Southeast Asia,” said Teo.

According to the company, it has disbursed, to date, over US$2b in business financing to MSMEs in the SEA region. 

The fintech is now licensed and registered in four countries across the region – Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and operating in Vietnam.

Singapore – Southeast Asia’s SME digital financing platform, Funding Societies, has announced that it has raised US$18m in debt for funding led by a trio syndicate of financial institutions, including lending company Helicap Investments, the newly launched Social Impact Debt Fund, and a Japanese financial services group. Helicap Securities acted as the sole mandated lead arranger on the secured credit facility.

Helicap provides private debt investments to a wide network of accredited investors, including family offices, high net worth individuals, impact funds, and institutional investors. In line with its support of sustainable lending, FinTech joined the round through its investments arm, Helicap Investments, after the deal was arranged by its securities arm, Helicap Securities.

Together with the funding received from European impact investors such as Triodos Investment Management for Indonesian business loans, Funding Societies is on track to  raising US$120m in institutional debt for funding the growth needs of MSMEs in SEA. This funding round also expands the platform’s institutional lender base, which is secured after passing financial and risk due to diligence conducted by the lenders. 

Moreover, Funding Societies will be placing the funds for lending to deserving MSMEs, propelling its mission of enabling financial inclusion in the region.

Kelvin Teo, Funding Societies | Modalku’s co-founder and group CEO, shared that the pandemic was an important test of resilience, and we are glad to have navigated it successfully, with a proven AI-led credit model.

“We are honored for the faith of Helicap, the Social Impact Debt Fund, and the Japanese financial services group, enabling us to further ride on the growth of SME digital financing. We believe this is a start of a long-term relationship and continuous evolution of Funding Societies,” said Teo.

David Z. Wang, the co-founder and CEO of Helicap, the parent company of Helicap Investments and Helicap Securities, commented they are delighted to have assisted Funding Societies in its goal of providing access to capital for underserved MSMEs. 

“Helicap was founded with the aim of breaking down traditional barriers for those who need capital and those who can provide it. This transaction demonstrates the ongoing institutional and individual appetite for private debt investment, and Helicap is well-positioned to provide access to quality opportunities through our relationships with leading issuers such as Funding Societies,” said Wang.

Funding Societies said that the syndicated facility of US$18m is expected to increase further with interest from investors across Asia and Europe.