Singapore Financial Data Startup To Double Down On Global Expansion After Insignia-Led Funding Round

Bluesheets, a two-year-old Singapore startup that uses AI-powered software to integrate financial data, has big plans for international expansion.

The startup last week announced it raised $4 million in pre-Series A funding to accelerate its growth. The round was led by by Insignia Ventures Partners, a Singapore-based VC firm whose other investments include Indonesian tech giant GoTo Group, Singapore-based used-car unicorn Carro and software company Appier, which last year became Taiwan’s first listed unicorn. It also included existing investors 1982 Ventures, Antler, Kistefos AS and Plug and Play APAC.

Bluesheets will use much of its newly raised capital to expand into new markets and “double down in international markets where we have a presence,” says cofounder and COO Clare Leighton. Some of the capital will go toward hiring, especially engineers, she adds. The company now employs 34 people and plans to add six more in the near term.

“Demand has only increased since launch, as businesses have been pressured to operate as efficiently as possible and rely on their data throughout the pandemic.”

The startup’s clients are in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, the U.K., the U.S. and Vietnam. Among them are Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican restaurant chain with 13 Singapore outlets, and Osome, a Singaporean accounting firm with operations elsewhere in Asia and Europe. Osome uses Bluesheets services to send and process account payables and receivables data.

The global data integration and integrity software market size was worth almost $11 billion last year and is on track to reach $29 billion by 2029, Fortune Business Insights forecasts.

“Demand has only increased since launch, as businesses have been pressured to operate as efficiently as possible and rely on their data throughout the pandemic,” says Leighton. “Now, recognizing its importance, companies from small and medium-sized enterprises to corporate multinationals are investing more than ever in automation and digital transformation.”

Insignia points to the “rapid adoption” of Bluesheets’ services as a reason for its investment. The firm said in a statement that Bluesheets had done more than 11 million financial data integrations after launching its software-as-a-service product just last year.

Data integration services are affordable to big companies as well as smaller ones, Leighton says, without disclosing prices.

“To process financial data in the back office, businesses have to gather, consolidate and enter data into their systems,” Leighton says. They would need to sort and transfer the data, most of it online, for accounting and reporting, she adds.

“They are either doing this manually, paying a high cost to outsource the offline portion, or attempting to build and maintain their own integrations,” she says. “Most businesses—especially in the small to medium-sized enterprise segment—do not have the resources or expertise to do this.”

Before starting Bluesheets with Christian Schneider, Leighton worked for Uber in Australia and helped with the local launch of Uber Eats. Schneider, who serves as CEO of Bluesheets, was formerly with the German venture fund and tech incubator Rocket Internet and Foodpanda, European food delivery giant Delivery Hero’s Asia business.