Square Peg backs Vietnam digital bank Timo

Jungle Ventures, Granite Oak, Phoenix Holdings, and Singapore’s FinAccel also participated. Square Peg previously backed a USD 90m round for FinAccel, in 2019. Last year, the start-up agreed to merge with a US-listed special purpose acquisition company at an enterprise valuation of USD 2bn.

Timo was developed as a front-end interface for VPBank in 2015 and switched its affiliation to Viet Capital Bank in 2019. It brands itself as the first digital-only bank in the country, although accounts have ultimately been the responsibility of its underlying brick-and-mortar partners.

Services include a Timo-branded debit card, a Timo Visa credit card, and access to deferred payments, travel insurance, and investment in mutual funds managed by VinaCapital, one of Timo’s early backers. The start-up also maintains five physical cafe-style branches, called Hangouts, that target youth engagement and increased brand recognition.

“We have been impressed by the Timo team’s vision to transform banking in Vietnam. In a market with almost no other independent, digital-native players, Timo stood out from the crowd,” Tushar Roy, a partner at Square Peg, said in a statement.

“It is a mission-oriented team aligned around creating beautiful experiences for customers and bringing more people in Vietnam into the financial ecosystem.”

Square Peg closed its third fund at about USD 450m in December 2020, three months after establishing a Singapore office – led by Roy – for an expanding Southeast Asian strategy. In addition to FinAccel, financial technology investments in the region include Indonesian micro-banking app Pluang and Singapore-based wealth management platform StashAway.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Vietnam
• Square Peg Capital
• Jungle Ventures
• Financial Services