Category: In the news

In the aftermath of a wild 2021 and the resurgence of Covid-19 in Thailand, 2022 has marked the welcome return of in-person meetings and events for the startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia.  On the other hand, 2022 has also seen prices collapse in both the cryptocurrency space and public equity markets, which has created headwinds for startups seeking funding.  This year has already seen a flurry of M&A activity and consolidation within various tech industries, and that is expected to continue as investors become more selective and funding becomes more concentrated.  Turbulent market conditions notwithstanding, Beacon continues to seek new investment opportunities while finding ways to support its portfolio companies and the Thai startup ecosystem through this difficult time.

Portfolio Review: New Investments

Primo – In early 2022, Beacon and Fuchsia VC joined hands to lead a Pre-Series A investment round in Thai marketing technology firm Primo.  Primo provides omnichannel marketing platforms for large enterprises.

Decentralized – In March, Beacon joined Decentralized’s fundraising round. Decentralized is a holding company focusing on direct investments in early stage blockchain companies and digital assets.

Alchemy through Pantera Capital – Beacon co-invested with Pantera Capital into Alchemy. Alchemy provides developers with the tools they need to easily and efficiently create mainstream blockchain applications.

Despite recent volatility in digital asset markets, Beacon continues to invest and seek opportunities to connect with startups who can bridge the gap between traditional finance and DeFi, and which are driving adoption of Web3.0 by the masses.  As the corporate venture arm of KBank, Beacon also looks for opportunities to support KBank’s initiatives in growing beyond traditional banking.

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Beacon News and Updates: Research

In addition to supporting KBank’s internal initiatives with research on new trends and technologies, Beacon regularly publishes research to stimulate conversation and share knowledge for the benefit of the Thai startup community.  This year, the Beacon team has explored a wide array of topics in Beacon’s bi-monthly newsletter, including the Metaverse, Token Fundraising, and ESG Investing.

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Beacon News and Updates: Community Building

A ‘friend of startups’, KATALYST supports the community in three main areas: ecosystem building, embedded payments and services, and strategic collaboration.

A Friend of Startups

Since the beginning of this year, KATALYST has worked with “Creative Talk” to produce the monthly talk series “KATALYST Talk” via ClubHouse, Youtube, and Facebook Live. Opinion leaders and startup owners inside and outside Thailand are invited to exchange ideas and experiences on how to operate businesses. KATALYST Talk has had great feedback from the community, with more than 100 attendees joining each talk.

In June 2022, KATALYST also sponsored workshops at Creative Talk Conference 2022 for Beacon’s portfolio companies, including FlowAccount, Jitta, Cryptomind, Fungjai (Ookbee’s group company), and Digio. The topics ranged from financial planning through smart accounting and financial records to digital asset investment and NFT brand marketing. KATALYST and Beacon also gave opportunities for startups to connect one-on-one and gain insights from investors including Fuchsia VC, Vertex Ventures and Openspace Ventures.

A Gateway to Financial Services and Collaboration

Small businesses often find it difficult to connect to corporations for partnership and collaboration. Speaking in the same language, KATALYST has helped startups to find the right products and services for their needs, and is the first gateway to exclusive collaboration with Kasikorn Group. Examples of projects from this past year include:

FlowAccount: FlowAccount users can gain easy access to commercial loan via K+ application.

Drivehub: Kasikorn Leasing collaborated with Drivehub allowing car rental service providers all over Thailand to offer car leasing at a special rate.

Aspire: KATALYST and Aspire worked together to organize a knowledge sharing webinar on “Cash Flow Management Optimization” to startups in KATALYST’s community.

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What to look forward to in the second half of 2022

KATALYST x Microsoft Thailand

KATALYST and Microsoft Thailand will jointly organize business matching between corporates and startups to find the right growth-driving solution through Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Startups joining the project will gain other benefits from Microsoft Thailand such as mentorship from Microsoft Thailand’s CEO and access to Microsoft for Startups. Startups can easily keep up with KATALYST’s activities here.

KATALYST STARTUP LAUNCHPAD 2022

KATALYST STARTUP LAUNCHPAD is an annual 9-week intensive course as part of a research project of the Stanford Thailand Research Consortium, led by Charles Eesley, an associate professor at Stanford University. Last year, 65 teams were selected to join the program. This year, participants will gain access to the Tech Innovation & Entrepreneurship E-Learning course and mentorship session from experts in various industries. The program is a great opportunity for early stage startups to learn and connect to the right people in the industry. Click here for more detail about this program.

 

On May 27th 2021, FoodStory, a leading POS & Restaurant Management System startup, announced that it recently raised Series B funding in a round led by Beacon VC, the venture capital arm of KASIKORNBANK PCL (KBank), with participation from JWD InfoLogistics PCL (JWD). The company plans to use the proceeds to support product development to improve restaurant operation efficiency. Additionally, FoodStory aims to enhance the Thai restaurant ecosystem by turning data into insights for restaurant owners to better understand and optimize their businesses for sustainable development.

FoodStory offers a one-stop solution for various types of restaurants including sit-down restaurants, buffets, coffee shops, and food trucks. Users can get started with a single iPad. The platform also covers dine-in and delivery services management as well as backend operations including integration with accounting systems and FoodStory Market, the company’s own restaurant supply marketplace for purchasing raw ingredients online. FoodStory offers several subscription packages and hardware equipment to support diverse restaurant requirements.

Nowadays, restaurants have greatly adapted to dynamic market conditions and are embracing technology. This aligns with FoodStory’s core mission to constantly develop and increase the efficiency of the system. FoodStory’s vision is to “Leverage Data To Connect Farm to Folk.”  The company is building on its existing POS and restaurant management system capabilities by turning data into insights that enable restaurants to efficiently grow their business.

Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon VC, revealed that “KBank’s core focus is to develop and provide financial technology to serve the needs of all customers and businesses in different sectors. Through Beacon VC’s investment and collaboration with FoodStory, we aim to support small and medium-sized restaurants by improving their access to financial products and funding through data utilization. Despite the uncertainty within the restaurant industry due to the pandemic, Beacon VC believes that FoodStory will play a crucial role in helping restaurant entrepreneurs to survive this crisis, especially as they shift from dine-in to take-out and food delivery. In addition, apart from supporting restaurant operations management, FoodStory’s solution allows restaurants to acquire new customers and improve sales.”

Mr.Tanate Piriyothinkul, Chief Commercial Officer of JWD InfoLogistics PCL, said that “JWD Group foresees the importance and growth potential of the food industry, especially through e-commerce channels, with an exceptional capability to thrive even further. JWD’s investment in FoodStory is one of the e-commerce strategies to accelerate food logistics business through an application platform in order to expand our food logistics to cover B2B, B2C, and C2C segments in the future. This growth will be enabled by cold chain express delivery service as well as an extensive network of temperature-controlled distribution centers and warehouses according to our business plan. We see FoodStory as an exceptional restaurant management platform which has high growth potential due to their business model, technology, and most importantly, the team with a strong vision and deep understanding of the total needs of restaurant businesses.”

Mr.Thagoon Chartsutipol, Founder and CEO of Living Mobile Co., Ltd., revealed that “for the past two years, we have developed the restaurant ecosystem through integration with LINE MAN and Wongnai in order to help restaurants increase their revenue. A year ago, we launched FoodStory Market with the concept of “A Place Where Suppliers Meet Kitchens” to facilitate online purchase of raw ingredients and address the pain points of price fluctuation, inconvenience in physical shopping, and employee fraud. Moreover, FoodStory Market has been fully integrated with the POS Inventory Management, online payment, and E-TAX Invoice modules. In order to empower a comprehensive restaurant ecosystem that connects Farm to Folk, we need a strong financial services partner like KBank and a cold chain logistics expert like JWD to fill these gaps and successfully build on the new form of supply chain business.

About FoodStory
Living Mobile Co., Ltd., also known as FoodStory, is a Thai tech startup which provides POS and restaurant management systems, and a food supply marketplace called “FoodStory Market”. FoodStory has over 25,000 users. FoodStory was established in 2012 and was the winner of True Incube Asia Pacific Mobile App Challenge in 2014 and SME Teetak in 2016 as well as being ranked top in restaurant management category due to the company’s consistent growth. FoodStory previously raised from Wongnai in 2018 and just completed a Series B funding round from Beacon VC and JWD in 2021.

About Beacon Venture Capital (Beacon VC)

Founded in 2017, Beacon VC is a wholly-owned corporate venture capital fund of Kasikornbank PCL. Beacon VC focuses on strategic investments in early to growth-stage technology startups covering not only financial technology (fintech) but also consumer internet and enterprise technology. Currently, Beacon VC has increased a fund size to $185 million to cover more diverse industries and has invested in several technology startups in Thailand and abroad such as FlowAccount, Jitta, Builk, Grab, Nium, and Aspire.

About JWD Infologistics Public Company Limited (JWD)

JWD provides a complete range of services in logistics and supply chain covering 8 ASEAN countries covering more than 2 million square meters of service capacity. The company has a strong expertise in warehouse management and logistics services including dangerous goods, temperature-controlled goods, automotive and auto parts, and general goods. Other businesses include food supply chain, logistics IT solution and investment.

Contact:

FoodStory
Chanachai Chaipanya
Marketing Director
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +66 89 414 8338

Beacon VC
Suparat Opasyanont
Business Development Manager
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +66 85 139 9374

JWD
Supicha Paowarat
VP Corporate Communications
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +66 94 151 6324

BUILK – a Thai tech startup – has announced that it recently completed Series B fundraising from Beacon VC, the venture capital arm of KASIKORNBANK PLC (KBank), with three other strategic investors. Through the VC funding, BUILK aims to strengthen its technology and financial services to enhance Thai companies’ construction material management process and propel the Thai construction industry towards the digital era. This innovation is hoped to benefit the construction supply chain, property developers, contractors, manufacturers, and distributors of construction materials, thus aiding BUILK in profit generation and preparing the company to go public thereafter.

Builk One Group Ltd. (BUILK) is a Thai tech startup that provides business management and online construction material trading platform for construction companies. Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Thai economic slowdown, the construction industry still shows bright prospects thanks to the capital injection from the public sector, especially into megaprojects and national infrastructure projects. However, many contractors lack the opportunity to access technology and funding sources, impairing these contractors’ ability to improve their business efficiency from cost and time management to quality aspects.

For over 11 years that Builk One Group has developed and offered a digital business management platform for the construction industry, it had helped more than 3,500 companies in the industry to digitize their work process through Builk One Group’s software as a service (SaaS) offering and workflow-integrated marketplace models. BUILK generated a sales turnover of more than 500 million Baht last year, and it plans to expand its presence within ASEAN in the foreseeable future.

Mr. Patai Padungtin, CEO and Founder of Builk One Group Co. Ltd., said that the company had developed the BUILK Platform to help Thai construction entrepreneurs operate more effectively, giving them improved access to funding or financial products. These goals align with Beacon Venture Capital’s vision to bring in digital innovation together with KBank’s financial capabilities to help contractors operate their businesses more systematically, eliminate redundancies, and improve access to capital. Moreover, Builk One Group has developed a technology for construction sites to enhance operational efficiency and reduce errors. This technology will also help contractors add value to their services, strengthen customer confidence, and create more significant interaction and communication between different stakeholders.

Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon Venture Capital, KBank’s venture capital arm who looks to invest in startups that have strong ability to innovate, commented that that Beacon VC is interested in the domestic construction industry because it still has a lot of opportunities to be digitized. Despite changes in the Thai construction industry along with challenges stemming from the recent disruption of new construction businesses and an unexpected pandemic, which has hurt the economy and private construction business, the construction industry remains imperative to Thailand’s development and growth. Thus, KBank has joined with Builk One Group to establish new guidelines towards the development of financial products and new forms of financial services in offering loans to construction firms that have the capacity and potential for growth, but cannot access funding sources to support their operations. To this end, technology is being used to enhance business capacity, develop a work system and increase the chance of getting construction projects.

This strategic cooperation between Beacon Venture Capital Co., Ltd. and Builk One Group Co., Ltd. also benefits from an alliance with three major business partners whose combined strengths help bring this shared vision closer to fruition. They are AddVentures by SCG, Cre-Ful Co., Ltd., and Rosewood Capital Co., Ltd., all of which bring their long-standing expertise in construction work to support technological development within this industry, in terms of technical knowledge and work systems. New technology will be utilized to solve real-life issues experienced by Thai contractors in fast and convenient ways that further reduce expenses. Moreover, this collaborative effort is expected to introduce further innovations and in-depth data analyses previously unseen in Thailand.

About Builk One Group

Builk One Group Co.,Ltd was established in 2005 and has expanded as tech startup since 2009, founding Builk Asia Co.,Ltd, with the mission to progressively shift the construction industry to become fully, digitally transformed. The team designed and developed many Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for the construction industry, such as Pojjaman2 (the fully cloud-based ERP system for large construction enterprises), and BUILK.COM (the first free cost control software for SME contractors in  Asia). With the mission to improve the construction industry by increasing efficiency in work and reducing the risk to the business, Builk One Group has brought knowledge, technology, creativity, and new business models to the industry. As a result, all solutions were developed for entrepreneurs in the whole construction supply chain, such as YELLO (the data-driven online construction materials store, offering price checks and purchase services), JUBILI by BUILK (the B2B customer relationship management), PLOY by BUILK (the customer relationship management for real estate), Kwanjai by BUILK (the commercial maintenance system), and BUILK360 (the brand-new virtual construction site tour). Previously, Builk One Group was funded by Thai corporate venture capital funds (CVC), which were Moonshot Venture Capital and AddVentures by SCG.

About Beacon Venture Capital

Founded in 2017, Beacon VC is a wholly-owned corporate venture capital fund of Kasikornbank PLC. Beacon VC focuses on strategic investments in early to growth-stage technology startups covering not only financial technology (fintech) but also consumer internet and enterprise technology. Currently, Beacon VC has a fund size of $135 million and has invested in several technology startups such as FlowAccount, Eventpop, Jitta, Grab, Nium and Aspire.

Contact:                       

Builk
Krittiyaporn Pota
Partnership Development
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +66 85-139-9374

Beacon Venture Capital
Suparat Opasyanont
Business Development Manager
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +66 88-223-1225

Digio, a Thailand-based leading payment technology provider, raises USD 4 million in Series B round to accelerate product and services development. The investors included in this round are Thai interbank payments provider PCC, Beacon Venture Capital, and Private Equity Trust for SME Growing Together 2 with Siam Alpha Equity (SAE) as Trust Advisor. The funding will enable Digio to expand its capacity to provide innovative payment technology for financial institutions and strengthen Thailand’s rapidly growing digital payments infrastructure.  Particularly given the increased uncertainty surrounding the current public health crisis, infrastructure supporting cashless payment plays a pivotal role in enabling remote transactions, both on and offline for consumers and businesses.

Mr. Nopphorn Danchainam, Founder and CEO of Digio, said, “We feel highly privileged to have long-standing trust from PCC and the major financial institutions in Thailand, and today’s investment will allow us to deliver a broader array of payment services to institutions and consumers alike.”

Digio’s products allow major institutions to enable digital payments for consumers and SMEs. In 2019, Digio’s array of payment products processed close to USD 1 billion. The company was recently awarded the Payment Facilitating Services (PFS) license by the Bank of Thailand (BOT) in 2020, which will help it offer new payment services directly to consumers and small businesses. This new license will complement Digio’s existing compliance certifications as the company is also certified for PCI compliance for banks, financial institutions, FinTechs, and other financial services providers.

In collaboration with PCC, Digio recently launched FLite, an innovative low-cost POS terminal which will allow SMEs to securely accept and process contactless credit card payments.  The company has also worked with major Thai financial institutions to facilitate e-invoices and e-payments, culminating in the release of their latest product, MeeBill.  MeeBill allows online and offline retail merchants to issue invoices to customers and collect QR payments via their mobile devices, as well as automatically reconciling the invoice against cash received.

“Our mission is to enable secure and frictionless digital payments in Thailand and the greater Southeast Asian region. With long-standing trust from our partners, we can and will create financial solutions that not only impact businesses but also people’s lives and drive the endless possibility of digital payments,” concluded Mr. Danchainam.

Established in 2012, Digio provides payment hardware and software solutions, such as EDC, mPOS, soft tokens, and payment gateways. The company has three offices in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. While based in Thailand, Digio’s client base covers Asian countries such as Japan, Malaysia, and Myanmar.  Digio has won several public awards for innovation, notably including the Prime Minister Award at ‘Startup Thailand 2017’. Unlike most startup companies, Digio has been profitable since its inception, and will continue to focus on maintaining a sustainable growth philosophy.

About Digio (Thailand)

Digio (Thailand) positions itself as a technology company dedicated to assisting financial institutions and partners with solutions through technology and innovation. Digio offers solutions to create efficiency and in turn create trust for SMEs and consumers.

Contact:

End-to-end staffing platform Workmate (formerly Helpster) announced that it closed a Series A funding round of US$5.2 million, led by Atlas Ventures with participation by Gobi Partners and Beacon Venture Capital (Beacon VC), the corporate venture capital arm of Kasikornbank PLC. (SET: KBANK), with existing investors also participating in the round. The fresh funds will be used to increase investment in sales, grow the technology team, and expand to new cities. The investment brings Workmate’s total funding to US$10 million since its launch in January 2016. Workmate aims to organize the informal workforce at scale in Southeast Asia.

In Southeast Asia, the informal labor sector accounts for more than 50% of the region’s workforce, with approximately US$200 billion in wages paid to informal workers annually. The staffing market for informal labor in the region is expected to double to US$8 billion by 2025. But despite the market’s huge potential, it is still bound to the traditional method of finding work and workers – usually through word of mouth – which means that securing reliable and consistent employment is difficult.

Mathew Ward, CEO and Co-founder of Workmate, is on a mission to change how this market operates. Ward, along with his founding partners, are known for their successful track record of building and exiting multiple tech startups in Southeast Asia, including Admax Network, Ardent Capital, Ensogo, and aCommerce.

“We are automating what traditional manpower agencies would typically offer – by allowing businesses to go directly to workers versus going through a middleman agency that charges up to 30% in fees – and we’re doing it at scale,” explains Ward. “The traditional staffing model is very manual and has very little technology adoption, it hasn’t changed much in 40 years. It’s a big market which is ripe for disruption. This model is gaining traction internationally – even Uber has just announced it launched a staffing solution called Uber Works in the US.”

Workmate aims to fill the same gap in emerging markets like Southeast Asia. Increasingly, more service-oriented, informal jobs are being created in the region, but both workers and businesses are currently underserved by tech solutions which mostly focus on building tools for the professional “white collar” workforce. However, Workmate sees a much bigger opportunity in the informal market as it’s a larger sector of the workforce, and a space where technology can provide real impact by bringing massive efficiency at scale.

For businesses, sourcing consistent, reliable workers can be immensely time-consuming, especially given the lack of data and information available about the workers themselves. On the other hand, workers find themselves without a job, sometimes for weeks at a time, because they can’t find the right match, making it even harder to make ends meet.

This is where Workmate’s end-to-end solutions come into play. All workers in the platform are pre-screened by Workmate before being made available to hire on the platform, ensuring a level of quality not found via a job board. Businesses then request staff through the platform and are instantly matched to workers nearby who have the required experience. They can view each workers’ experience, ratings, and performance history, before confirming which workers they want.  The platform also manages contracts, attendance, time sheets and worker payments to provide a seamless end-to-end solution.

For workers, once they pass Workmate’s screening process, they are shown multiple job offers to choose from every day via the Workmate App. These jobs are tailored to match their skills so they no longer have to go looking for work, as the work comes to them. Workmate also offers workers protection from wage fraud, provides social security, and has upcoming plans to offer insurance and access to financial support. This not only fulfils the basic needs of informal workers; it makes the entire industry more attractive as a viable livelihood pathway for more people than ever before.

“Workmate is building something unique in this region. We are not a job board or simply a connector – we are an end-to-end staffing solution that empowers and protects workers in the region while helping businesses ensure a steady flow of manpower to keep their engines running at full capacity,” said Ward.

Maxim Shkvaruk, Director at Atlas Ventures said, “We believe there is latent demand for a better staffing solution in the blue collar space, and Workmate is the answer. We have been very impressed with Mat and his team as well as the company’s growth, and we are very excited to support the team in their journey to help millions of workers in Southeast Asia gain economic freedom by providing them with access to jobs with better pay and maximum flexibility”

Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon VC, added: “Helping Kasikornbank provide better financial services to the underserved population is among our core focuses. We are impressed by Workmate’s insights and strong commitment to push for betterment of informal workers, as well as the strong growth Workmate has had in Thailand and Indonesia. We want to ensure KBank can understand and serve these workers better as they work towards achieving life aspirations and financial health.”

Workmate is headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Bangkok, Jakarta and Bali, and has plans to expand further in 2020. Some of the platform’s key early customers include aCommerce, Flash Express, JD Central, Taco Bell, Lazada and Chilindo in Thailand, while in Indonesia it supports Ismaya Group, Grab, NinjaVan, Kopi Kenangan, and STOQO. In 2018, the platform also delivered more than 1,000 workers to the Asian Games held in Jakarta and Palembang.

Workmate (formerly Helpster) is an on-demand staffing platform that provides businesses with instant access to qualified personnel for temporary and/or contract hiring needs. Operating in Indonesia and Thailand, it provides informal workers with a fast and effective way to make money. It’s an end-to-end, technology-driven solution that takes care of worker screening, attendance management, payments, and more. Workmate was co-founded by Mathew Ward and John Srivorakul.

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Also in:

Tech in Asia (English), DealstreetAsia (English), KrASIA (English), Techsauce (English)

Beacon Venture Capital (Beacon VC), the corporate venture capital arm of Kasikornbank PLC. (SET: KBANK), invests in NYCA Partners’ third venture capital (VC) fund. NYCA ranked as the third most active financial technology (fintech) VC fund by CB Insights in 2018. The fund brought in an investment of US$210 million from a global network of 21 institutional investors and notable figures in fintech and financial services industry.

Founded in 2014 by a former President of Visa, Mr. Hans Morris, NYCA invests in companies where technology creates a distinct competitive advantage in financial services spanning from banking, payments, and investing, to insurance. NYCA is well-known for its hands-on approach. Over the past five years, NYCA Partners has assembled a remarkable group of 55 Limited Partners Advisors who help in analyzing prospective investments and provide deep assistance and expert advice to their portfolio companies to help entrepreneurs become more successful.

Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon VC, said: “The investment marks our first investment outside of Southeast Asia. NYCA is led by a team of former C-level executives from major financial institutions, including J.P. Morgan, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and Visa. We are impressed with the team’s ability to leverage their financial services experience to uniquely select and invest in companies that complement the existing financial infrastructure. Through the collaboration, we will bring innovation from the fintech ecosystem worldwide to Thailand, insights from NYCA’s global network of investors and advisors to KBANK, and portfolio management best practices from NYCA to Beacon VC.”

Mr. Hans Morris, Managing Partner of NYCA Partners, said: “NYCA is delighted to collaborate with Beacon VC to bring leading fintech companies from around the world to Thailand. We meet innovators in all stages, early and growth, and we are eager to unearth the next disruptor in all the many corners of financial services. By connecting our knowledgeable investors and advisors with fintech entrepreneurs, we aim to create a symbiotic relationship that enables a more efficient and empowering financial system for all of us.”

NYCA is the fourth VC fund investment made by Beacon VC, following Southeast Asia-based fintech fund Dymon Asia Ventures, Singapore-based growth-stage fund Vertex Ventures, and Thailand-based education technology accelerator StormBreaker Venture. Additionally, Beacon VC has actively made direct investments in startups across Southeast Asia, including Southeast Asia’s fast-growing neobank application Aspire Financial Technologies, global cross-border payment company InstaReM, and ride-hailing and financial services unicorn Grab.

NYCA Partners is a leading venture capital fund focused on connecting innovative companies to the global financial system. NYCA’s rich experience and deep connections in both finance and technology give it a unique perspective and facility to help entrepreneurs transform payments, credit models, digital advice, and financial infrastructure. NYCA strives to form truly collaborative partnerships, offering capital and expert advice. Some of NYCA’s notable investments include a consumer credit unicorn Affirm, a micro-investing application Acorns, and a business payment and credit network Fundbox.

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Also in:

e27 (English), DealstreetAsia (English)

Beacon Venture Capital (Beacon VC), the corporate venture capital arm of Kasikornbank PLC. (SET: KBANK), participates in US$32.5 million Series A funding round of Aspire Financial Technologies Holding, Inc. (Aspire). Beacon VC joins the pool of international investors including Y Combinator, MassMutual Ventures SEA, Insignia Ventures Partners, Hummingbird Ventures, Picus Capital. KBANK and Aspire aim to work together to digitize banking to small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and online merchants in Thailand through the investment.

Aspire is Southeast Asia’s leading SME neo banking platform. It is building a scalable marketplace banking infrastructure that leverages third-party financial service providers to create a unique digital banking experience customized to SMEs’ needs.

AspireAccount, Aspire’s flagship product targeted at digital merchants and startups across the region. It offers an instant credit limit for daily business expenses, a virtual B2B payment acceptance and other tools to help SMEs manage their cash flow. It can be opened online in just a few clicks. A business credit card is next in line. It will be available and linked to each business account this year. Aspire currently operates across Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon VC, said: “Banking to the underbanked population and SMEs is one of the core focus of Beacon VC’s investment thesis. We are impressed with Aspire team’s ability to execute and expand the business to four countries within only one and a half year. Their background in e-commerce allows them to truly understand merchants’ pain points.
With Aspire, online merchants and SMEs can access financial services to operate their businesses through their mobile phones.”

Mr. Andrea Baronchelli, Co-Founder and CEO of Aspire, said: “With a mutual goal of creating a unique digital banking experience to customers, Aspire will leverage KBANK’s infrastructure to offer a unique financial experience to customers of Aspire and KBANK. KBANK has the largest SME customer base in Thailand, but a number of SMEs still lack access to funding and customized banking services. Aspire hope to offer services, including working capital loans, digitized merchant-supplier payments, and remittance services to facilitate KBANK customers through this investment and collaboration.”
Aspire represents the eighth direct investment by Beacon VC. Its most recent investments include Thailand-based wealthtech company Jitta, Southeast Asia’s leading cross-border payment company InstaReM, and ride-hailing and financial services unicorn Grab. The investment in Aspire will be used to scale the company’s operations across Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

 

 

 

Aspire operates a neo banking platform. It is serving a new generation of internet businesses with a mobile-first digital account across Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam. AspireAccount offers an instant credit limit for daily business expenses and tools to help SMEs manage their cash flow effectively. It can be opened online in just a few clicks. Founded in January 2018 by former Lazada executives, the company graduated from the world’s leading startup accelerator Y Combinator in Winter 2018 batch.

 

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Also in:

e27 (English), Techsauce (English), Money & Banking (Thai), efinanceThai (Thai), Manager Online (Thai)