Jeffrey Liu, cofounder and CEO of Jenfi.
Singapore-based fintech startup Jenfi announced Tuesday it raised $6.6 million in a pre-Series B funding round led by Headline Asia, the regional arm of global venture capital firm Headline, best known for its investments in dating app Bumble and luxury e-commerce website Farfetch.
Participating in the round were returning investor Monk’s Hill Ventures, as well as ICU Ventures, Granite Oak, Korea Investment Partners, Golden Equator Ventures and Atlas Ventures. The pre-Series B brings the four-year-old Y Combinator graduate’s total funding to $37.9 million.
“We have been continuously conducting research on revenue-based financing and have talked to almost every single player in this field in Asia,” Aki Okamoto, a partner at Headline Asia, said in a statement. “Jenfi absolutely stood out to us. Their technology, product, operation and traction are significantly better than their peers.”
Headline Asia was a prominent backer of last year’s Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, with three portfolio companies featured: Vietnam-based wealth management platform Finhay, Philippines-based logistics startup Inteluck and Singapore-based mental healthcare provider Intellect.
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Under a model the startup calls “growth capital as a service,” Jenfi disburses loans of up to $1 million to online businesses, such as e-commerce and SaaS brands, for a fixed percentage of their monthly revenue. The non-dilutive capital can be used for marketing campaigns and inventory management. Since its launch in 2019, Jenfi claims it has deployed more than $25 million to over 600 companies, including healthcare content agency Hello Health and remote working tool Bolton Remote.
The quick turnaround for loan approval – with funds disbursed as soon as a day after a the initial application – is made possible by an automated risk assessment engine. The startup claims its credit underwriting and monitoring leverages granular data from each company, from sources like accounting software Xero, e-commerce platforms like Shopify, and advertising tools from Google and Facebook.
“We are honored to be backed by such a distinguished group of investors as we strive to push the boundaries of innovation in the fintech lending industry,” said Jeffrey Liu, cofounder and CEO, in a statement about the latest funding. With the fresh capital, Jenfi aims to enhance the speed and accuracy of its credit underwriting and risk assessment tools, while broadening its customer base in Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Founders in Southeast Asia have increasingly targeted the region’s nascent fintech space. Last September, Hong Kong-based fintech unicorn WeLab acquired Indonesia Bank Jasa Jakarta alongside business group Jardine Matheson’s Astra International, targeting Indonesia’s underdeveloped market for digital banking. Last June, Finhay raised a $25 million Series B funding round led by Singapore-based Openspace Ventures to further its expansion in Vietnam. That same month, Philippine finance management app Lista raised a $5.1 Series A funding round, also led by Openspace Ventures.
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/catherinewang/2023/05/17/singapore-based-y-combinator-graduate-raises-66-million-to-expand-its-growth-capital-as-a-service/