Singapore-based fintech startup Surfin has secured $12.5 million in a Series A round from venture capital firm Insignia Ventures Partners, according to an announcement.
This is the company’s first round of external funding, it said.
Established in 2017, Surfin began with consumer lending and has since expanded to offer other financial services such as payments and remittances, credit card issuance, and wealth management. Today, it is present in Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Nigeria, Kenya, India, Uganda, and Australia. Its largest market is Indonesia, where it holds licences for peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, mutual fund distribution, remittances, and payment gateway services.
According to Surfin’s filings with Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), it could raise up to $5 million more from other investors in the round.
“Surfin represents two key shifts in the way companies are growing from Southeast Asia. It is a company headquartered and operating in the region, but with a multi-country presence and global ambitions from early on. It is also a company leveraging the wave of AI transforming industry to deliver more equitable credit access to the underbanked,” said Insignia Ventures founding managing partner Yinglan Tan in a prepared statement.
In its announcement, Surfin said its services have been used by over 60 million consumers in eight countries and have facilitated transactions worth $2.5 billion in total.
The company is led by founder and CEO Yanan Wu, whose 26 years of investment experience span stints at CITIC Prudential Fund and TD Asset Management Canada.
Surfin is banking on technology as a critical differentiator in the fintech market. For instance, it uses big data models to develop credit scoring and risk management systems to support lending to unbanked and underbanked populations in emerging markets.
“Surfin’s vision has always been to build a financial technology services ecosystem on top of our scalable and sustainable risk management system, powered by AI and big data,” said Wu.
The Surfin founder recently told SCMP in an interview that the company generated over $170 million in revenue and $20 million in net profit last year.
