Softbank leads $25m round for Singapore fintech player

Additional participants included Sequoia Capital India, Golden Gate Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, Qualgro, and Line Ventures. It is being touted as the largest ever in a Southeast Asian P2P lending platform.

Founded in 2015, Funding Societies operates a digital marketplace that helps small to medium-sized enterprises (SME) in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia crowdfund loans from retail and institutional lenders. The company claims to have grown its loan book by 300% since early 2016, reaching the S$100 million ($230 million) mark as of January this year, while maintaining a default rate of less than 1.5%.

SME digital lending across Southeast Asia is where we saw a huge growth potential," Sean Lee, partner and managing director at SoftBank Ventures Korea, said in a statement. "Among many players, we were most impressed with Funding Societies with what it has achieved in the short period of time and its potential to continue to become a number-one player."

Vinnie Lauria, managing partner at Golden Gate noted that Funding Societies uses machine learning on a large number of data points to identify opportunities that traditional banks overlook. This is said to allow for smarter financing decision-making and attracting higher-quality SMEs on to the platform. Loans are crowdfunded by the service within minutes.

Previous investment includes a $7.5 million Series A led by Sequoia in 2016 with support from Alpha JWC. The Funding Societies platform has also raised credit lines from banks and financial institutions. Additional investors include The Graduate Syndicate, a seed-stage investment program led by Jeff Bussgang, co-founder of US-based Flybridge Capital Partners.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Singapore
• SOFTBANK Ventures Korea
• Sequoia Capital
• Golden Gate Ventures
• Financial Services