Singapore fintech player AIG raises $80m
Advance Intelligence Group (AIG), a Singapore-headquartered and Indonesia-focused financial technology company, has raised USD 80m in funding led by existing investors Warburg Pincus and Northstar Group.
AIG said in a statement that it has now raised more than USD 700m in equity funding and secured over USD 1bn in credit facilities to support its lending book. The new round comes 18 months after SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Warburg Pincus took the lead in a USD 400m Series D at a valuation of USD 2bn.
Other investors across the company’s numerous funding rounds include Gaorong Capital, Vision Plus Capital, GSR Ventures, ZhenFund, Tencent Holdings, Alpha Startups, Provident Capital Partners, Farallon Capital, Pavilion Capital, eGarven Ventures, Unicorn Ventures, and EDBI.
The fresh capital will support AIG’s collection of business units: buy now, pay later (BNPL) business Atome, e-commerce merchant services platform Ginee, and credit scoring and fraud prevention specialist Advance.AI. The company claims a geographic footprint that takes in most of Asia plus part of South America and Africa, 700 enterprise clients, 200,000 merchants, and 30m users.
AIG was founded in 2016 and gained initial traction with Advance.AI. Key moments in its evolution – supported by various investors in terms of business development, recruitment, and networking – involved diversification into B2C services, specifically BNPL, and expansion into China.
Jefferson Chen, the company’s co-founder, group chairman, and CEO, believes the roots in fraud detection and credit scoring have helped in managing risk as the business has diversified. This has enabled AIG to scale at speed, with Chen claiming annual revenue is now in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Atome became the main revenue driver in 2019, followed by Advance.AI, and by some distance, Ginee. Atome, which is often described as Asia’s largest BNPL player, partners with more than 5,000 online and offline retailers across nine markets. There is also an Indonesia-based digital lending app that has received 20m downloads and disbursed more than USD 1.5bm in loans.
“Advance Intelligence Group and its leadership team continue to execute on their vision of advancing the digital ecosystem in the region,” said Saurabh Agarwal, a partner a Warburg Pincus.
“Southeast Asia remains one of the fastest growing digital markets globally with a 680m population, the majority of whom still lack affordable and equitable access to credit. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Jefferson and helping the company deliver its commitment to millions of customers across the region.”
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