Thailand's Beacon leads $6.5m round for local fintech player

It is said to be the largest pre-Series A round raised in Thailand to date. The capital will be used for global expansion, including a push this year into Singapore and India, as well as for hiring developers to incorporate artificial intelligence into existing services. 

Jitta offers investment analysis services covering stock markets in 16 countries and claims more than 200,000 users globally. Its stock-ranking technology has been used by asset management firms to manage more than TBT2.2 billion ($70 million) worth of assets. Thanapong Na Ranong, a managing director at Beacon, said that the algorithm has been proven to help investors "beat the market in the long run" and steadily grow its user base.

"Jitta is one of the very few Thai start-ups with a highly scalable product, meaning it can launch and solve the same problem in any foreign market in a very quick and efficient manner," Thanapong said in a statement. "We believe this local start-up star has all the potential to bring about an investment phenomenon that hugely benefits the society as well as putting Thailand's start-up community on the world's center stage."

Beacon was set up in 2017 with an approximately $30 million fund focused on fintech investments relevant to Kasikornbank's services and customer base. Portfolio companies include Southeast Asian ride-hailing player Grab and Ookbee, a media platform that has established a content generation joint venture with Tencent Holdings. Last year, Beacon joined a $20 million round for InstaRem, a Singaporean cross-border payments specialist.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Thailand
• Financial Services
• Venture