Vertex leads $5m investment in Singapore's InstaRem

Fullerton Financial Holdings, a Temasek subsidiary that focuses on supporting financial institutions in emerging markets, also participated in the round, as did existing investor Global Founders Capital. InstaRem will use the capital to support its geographic expansion, to acquire money-transfer licenses in additional markets, and to grow its development and marketing teams.

The company focuses on workers living in foreign countries and sending remittances to their families at home. It seeks to offer faster service at a lower cost than banks and traditional remittance services such as Western Union; InstaRem typically charges a fee of less than 1%, and completes transfers by the next day.

InstaRem began its operations in Australia, and has since acquired licenses in Hong Kong and Canada. The company handles remittances from these countries to India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Indonesia. Currently it is applying for licenses in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Luxembourg, and selected states in the US. By July it plans to allow users to send remittances to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Nepal, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Along with expats and migrant workers, InstaRem also targets small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which make up about 20% of its customer base. These clients prefer InstaRem over other money transfer options because of the flexibility it allows in terms of both price and scheduling.

"Trying to do a startup in the fintech space is not easy, as you may need more finance background than technology to maneuver through the complicated industry," Chua Joo Hock, managing director at Vertex, told Tech in Asia. "InstaRem not only develops a unique deep integration model with banks but also shows a very strong capability to execute, which are two important qualities that really excite us."

Vertex targets a wide range of sectors in Southeast Asia, including information technology, retail, medical and manufacturing. The firm recently launched a $200 million fund focused on Southeast Asia and India; capital for the fund came entirely from parent company Temasek.

Global Founders is a VC firm founded by Rocket Internet's Oliver, Marc and Alexander Samwer. Its investments in Southeast Asia include a 2013 commitment of an undisclosed amount to Indonesian flight booking service Traveloka, a seed round for Malaysia's KFit in 2015, and a seed round for Indonesian online crafts marketplace Qlapa in January.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Expansion
• Technology
• Venture
• Singapore
• Temasek Holdings