Australia’s Bigstone receives $2.3m seed round

Additional participants in the round included the founders of Thailand-based Lighthouse Venture Partners as well as other Australian private investors. The capital will be used to grow the company's marketing team and partnering network.

"CVC makes long-term patient capital investments, and there is a significant opportunity for Bigstone to take advantage of a market that is being disrupted by marketplace lenders and rapidly grow their business," Sandy Beard, CEO of CVC said in a statement. "We believe Bigstone has created a better intermediation process than those currently available that vastly improves the process for enabling investors to provide loans to borrowers while providing them with vastly improved investment returns."

Bigstone launched earlier this year with an aim to facilitate the funding process for small companies, particularly in the financial technology sector. The company cites upside for this approach in a lack of simple, fast and fair financing options for both growing businesses and investors in Australia. The country is now considered the third largest online alternative finance market in Asia Pacific behind China and Japan, with an estimated value A$460 million.

"We see strong growth potential for businesses like this in Southeast Asia and look forward to participating in its development in Australia," added Paniti Junhasavasdikul, the founding partner at Lighthouse. "Gone are the days of traditional banks. From my own firsthand experience with traditional bank services, fiat currency, blockchain settlement and direct loan marketplaces are the next wave of the financial world."

CVC invests in private equity and venture capital via its Eildon Capital division. The firm makes sector-agnostic investments across company development stages in a range of A$1-15 million.

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• Topics
• Australasia
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• Early-stage
• Australia
• Financial Services
• seed