Singapore's VC-backed GoBear to wind down
GoBear, a Singaporean financial technology start-up that received VC backing as recently as May, will cease operations and begin a phased closure of the business, citing pandemic-related disruption.
It comes less than a year after GoBear raised $17 million from founding backers Aegon, a Dutch financial services player, and Walvis Participaties, the VC arm of Dutch asset management firm Walvis Group.
The start-up has raised $97 million from the two investors in the past two years, according to AVCJ Research. Bank Negara Malaysia provided incubation, acceleration, and strategic support.
“Despite making progress in its growth and transformation plans during 2020, the ongoing global pandemic has made the operating and fundraising environment very challenging and GoBear has so far been unable to raise more funds to continue operations,” it said in a statement. “The factors included a prolonged period of weakened demand for some financial products and services, in particular travel insurance.”
GoBear launched in 2015 as a metasearch engine and grew into a financial services and data platform offering individual users a one-stop service for searching and buying products. The site is active in seven markets across Southeast Asia, including Hong Kong. To date, the company has served over 55 million users searching for more than 2,000 personal finance products. It employs 165 staff in six offices across the region.
GoBear had anticipated the impact of COVID-19 in May, when it acquired AsiaKredit, a lending platform focused on underserved consumers in the Philippines. This was part of a plan to make digital lending a key business pillar alongside digital insurance brokerage and the core financial services marketplace.
“With economic growth in developing countries set to decline sharply in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19, providing consumers with access to credit will become increasingly important,” Walvis said in a statement at the time.
Walvis has more than EUR70 million ($86 million) in assets under management across three funds, primarily invested in the Netherlands. Fund III makes investments of up to EUR5 million in early-stage technology companies with a focus on fintech, e-commerce, enterprise software, healthcare, and the internet-of-things.
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