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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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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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Beacon Venture Capital (Beacon VC), the corporate venture capital arm of Kasikornbank PLC. (SET: KBANK), announced its investment into a seed financing round of Horganice, a leading rental properties management platform in Thailand. The funding will enable Horganice to accelerate customer acquisition as well as adding new services to digitize rental properties, propelling Thailand into a digital era.

Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon Venture Capital, announced that “Beacon VC has invested into a seed financing round into Horganice, a startup that provides rental properties management technology for apartments, dormitories, and markets, for an undisclosed amount. Beacon VC’s investment is not only an opportunity for Horganice to build technical capability, but also an opportunity to collaborate with KBank in order to acquire new customers and leverage innovative financial services, such as payment systems, to provide fast, efficient, and convenient product offerings to Horganice’s customers, especially those outside of Bangkok which are Horganice’s target market.”

Horganice represents the seventh direct investment and the first seed round 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.

Mr. Tanawit Tonekunya, CEO and Co-founder of Horganice, said, “We have already built a great rapport and been enjoying a number of productive collaborations with KBank. Our mission is to bring property management in Thailand into the new digital era and enable a carefree life for both owners and tenants alike. Today’s investment from Beacon VC will help us deliver that promise and move one big step closer to our mission”

The partnership with KBANK will enable Horganice to offer seamless financial services to tenants, property managers, and property owners, leveraging KBank’s leadership in digital banking. Collaboration initiatives which have already gone live this past year include online bill payments and new loan offerings. KBANK and Horganice have also been closely working together to bring knowledge on smart property management in the digital era to small and medium businesses (SMBs) across Thailand.

Horganice has had great reception from the market and is now serving around 3,000 properties, covering more than 130,000 rooms across almost every province in Thailand.  The company was founded by a group of aspiring young entrepreneurs and has received many national awards from notable organizations, such as the Winner Award of Startup Thailand Pitching Challenge Chiang Mai in 2017.  The company initially started out providing management software to university dorm owners before extending their product offerings to include cloud-based internet of things (IoT) hardware solutions and expanding coverage to wider customer segments, including hospital dorms and markets.

Established in 2015, Horganice offers both smart property management software and hardware-based automation products that reduce management costs and allow dorm owners to run their business easily and efficiently.

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Beacon VC, a corporate venture capital arm of Kasikornbank (SET: KBANK), leads a funding round of $6.5 million for Jitta, Thailand’s leading WealthTech startup that offers high-tech solutions for investors worldwide. The funding round, which is the biggest pre-series A round for a Thai startup, will help promote innovation in the country’s WealthTech industry and prepare Jitta for global expansion.

Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director, Beacon Venture Capital, said, “Beacon VC sees a lot of growth potential for wealth-management technology, or WealthTech, as it plays an increasingly important role amidst low interest rates. Jitta has exhibited the most outstanding capability to develop such technology, with its proprietary stock-analysis algorithm that’s been proven to help investors beat the market in the long run, as well as a steadily growing user base. The expertise of Jitta’s co-founders and team and, particularly, their strong commitment to bring genuine value to their customers give us confidence that Jitta will be able to transform the industry and achieve tremendous growth.”

“Jitta is one of the very few Thai startups with a highly scalable product, meaning it can launch and solve the same problem in any foreign market in a very quick and efficient manner. We believe this local startup star has all the potential to bring about an investment phenomenon that hugely benefits the society as well as putting Thailand’s startup community on the world’s center stage,” Mr. Thanapong added.

Beacon VC is one of Thailand’s most active venture funds, with a portfolio of 5 startups in both Thailand and overseas. The firm focuses on investing in high-potential startups that can deliver real value to KBANK’s customers or can contribute to the bank’s business expansion.

This new investment round, led by Beacon VC, marks the biggest pre-series A funding for a Thai startup to date. Beacon VC will support Jitta in expanding its services in Thailand and abroad, enabling broader access to Jitta’s simple-yet-effective investment solutions so more people can build long-term wealth with minimal effort, which is in line with KBANK’s direction.

Mr. Trawut Luangsomboon, CEO & co-founder, Jitta, said, “Our vision is to make sure that investors benefit the most from what we do. We develop technology to help people access highest-quality investment information so they can achieve better returns efficiently and effortlessly. Through this partnership with Beacon VC, who not only funds us but also opens doors to more opportunities, we can raise our innovative capabilities and become a leading WealthTech company. To do that, we have plans to hire more developers to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into our technology. We’ll also make accessible stock-analysis data of 95% of the world’s stocks from 16 territories. Lastly, we’re getting ready to launch a new service and expand it to Singapore and India this year.”

Jitta is a leading WealthTech startup in Thailand with a strong development team. The company has built unique big data technology to analyze business financials and automates portfolio management based on Warren Buffett’s value investing approach: “buy a wonderful company at a fair price.” Jitta’s stock-ranking algorithm, dubbed Jitta Ranking, boasts index-beating backtested return. Consequently, a number of asset management firms have offered the Jitta Ranking investment strategy to their clients. There is a total of Bt2.2 billion worth of assets managed using this strategy.

“Additionally, we’re launching a new service called Jitta Wealth, a technology-based fund that uses the Jitta Ranking strategy and aims to provide index-beating returns in the long run. This long-term investment alternative will be operated by Jitta Wealth Asset Management, currently in the process of obtaining a private fund license from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and will tentatively begin operating in the second quarter of this year. We believe Jitta Wealth will receive a lot of interest from retail investors, due to the fuss-free service, the low management fee of 0.5% per year and fair performance fee of 10% of the profits, and better returns through the use of technology. Investors can also diversify their investments across Thailand, Vietnam, and the U.S. with ease as everything can be done online, making it simpler for anyone to invest,” Mr. Trawut concluded.

According to the BCG Global Asset Management 2018 report, global assets under management (AUM) reached $79.2 trillion in 2017, growing at 12%, the strongest rate in a decade thanks to growth in China and the U.S. Meanwhile, in Thailand, total AUM was about $190 billion, growing at 7.6%, and has been increasing every year. This suggests strong demand for asset management services, especially WealthTech alternatives that cost less, help diversify risks, and deliver higher profits in the long run—the perfect answer to modern investors’ needs.

Founded in January 2014, Jitta is a Thai WealthTech startup whose mission is to develop technology allowing investors worldwide to access quality investment insights that help them make profitable decisions, earning better returns through simpler methods. Jitta’s technology include Jitta.com, a fundamental analysis platform covering stock markets in 16 countries with over 200,000 users in 128 countries, and Jitta Wealth, an automated stock investment platform that uses Jitta Ranking strategy to deliver higher returns at lower fees and risks. The Jitta Ranking strategy has been used by partnered asset management firms to manage over Bt2.2 billion worth of assets.

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• InstaReM, Southeast Asia’s leading digital cross-border payments company, has announced the first close of its US$ 45 million Series C round, at over US$ 20 million.
• The first close is led by high profile new investors MDI Venture Capital (the venture capital arm of Telkom) and Beacon Venture Capital (the venture capital arm of KASIKORNBANK).
• InstaReM’s Series C round (to be completed in January 2019) will be used to drive growth in new markets, and to support the launch of a new consumer and enterprise product in 2019.

InstaReM, Southeast Asia’s leading digital cross-border payments company, has announced one of the most significant Series C funding rounds for a fintech in Southeast Asian history. The company’s rapid growth has secured a first close of more than US$ 20 million led by new investors MDI Ventures (the VC arm of Indonesia’s Telkom), and Beacon Venture Capital (the VC arm of Thailand’s KASIKORNBANK) and supported by existing investors, Vertex Ventures, GSR Ventures, Rocket Internet and SBI-FMO Fund.

The Series C round of US$ 45 million, which takes the digital remittance fintech’s overall funding to over US$ 63 million, is expected to close by January 2019, in advance of its expected IPO in 2021.

This Series C round will accelerate growth in InstaReM’s existing markets and enable it to enter new markets in Japan and Indonesia, where it is expected to receive licenses by the end of this year. This round will also enable InstaReM to launch a new consumer and enterprise product in 2019 for which the company has aggressive plans.

InstaReM’s next-generation payments platform leverages the latest technology to help its individual and enterprise customers send money to their destinations quicker and at a lower cost than its competitors. With regulatory licenses and approvals in Singapore, Australia, India, Europe, United States, Hong Kong, Canada and Malaysia, and its extensive global banking partnerships, InstaReM is able to reach to over 3.21 billion consumer and business customers across 55+ countries worldwide. InstaReM already powers payments for three of the top ten Southeast Asian banks.

Prajit Nanu, Co-founder & CEO of InstaReM said: “The promise we’ve made to our customers, from day one, is that we’ll always be transparent, and we’ll forever give them the best value we can to help them #DoMore with their money. No matter where they are in the world, and no matter if they’re a business or an individual sending money overseas, it’s been our mission to be their champion. That’s why we were one of the first Asian remittance providers to move outside of Asia, and that’s another reason why we’ve been able to secure this historic round of funding. In less than 4 years, we have become the payment backbone for emerging markets for banks and other global financial institutions.”

Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon Venture Capital (Beacon VC) added: “We have been following InstaReM for some time, and are impressed with the way the company has been expanding globally, and scaling up its operations. As KASIKORNBANK becomes the digital bank of choice for customers, we have a strong commitment to working closely with category leaders in each sector and constantly improving our customer experience.”

InstaReM is a member of RippleNet, Ripple’s global network of banks and other financial institutions, and has recently bagged the Blockchain Innovator Award by Ripple, for its innovations in the payments space.

Starting its operations in Australia in 2015, today, InstaReM has presence across 40 countries/regions including Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, United States, Canada, Malaysia, India and Europe. InstaReM has created a unique payment mesh in Asia, which is being leveraged by financial institutions, SMEs and individuals to make fast low-cost cross-border payments.

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• Partnership introduces GrabPay by KBank, a co-branded mobile payment application, and a suite of other financial solutions in Thailand
• Announcement makes Grab Financial the first mobile wallet and financial services platform available in all ASEAN-6 markets, just 6 months after its launch
• KBank makes a strategic investment as part of Grab’s ongoing fundraising round

Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading online-to-offline (O2O) platform, and KASIKORNBANK (KBank), Thailand’s leading financial conglomerate, today announced a strategic partnership to introduce GrabPay by KBank, a co-branded mobile payment application, as well as a suite of other financial solutions in Thailand.

With this partnership, Grab Financial marks the expansion of its mobile wallet to all ASEAN-6 countries – Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, and Thailand, cementing itself as the region’s number one fintech player.

“In 2018, Grab Financial has established itself as Southeast Asia’s leading fintech platform, both in terms of Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Total Payments Volume (TPV). This partnership makes Grab Financial the first mobile payments platform to launch e-money-licensed payments services across ASEAN-6 and underlines the strength of our partnership-based strategy. By opening up our platform, we have attracted many of the leading players in the financial services industry and driven exponential growth for our business,” said Reuben Lai, Senior Managing Director, Grab Financial.

Patchara Samalapa, President, KASIKORNBANK says, “KASIKORNBANK has bold ambitions of becoming the digital bank of choice in the region. We look forward to developing innovative financial products together, which will put KBank in a position to tap into the rapidly growing digital economy across the region.”

The partnership comes with a strategic investment from KBank in Grab, and is part of Grab’s ongoing fundraising round, which includes Toyota Motor Corporation, Microsoft Corp., Booking Holdings, Hyundai Motor Group, Oppenheimer Funds, and other leading global investors. The investment is a first for KBank in an international company with a core business outside of Thailand, calling to attention the size of the opportunity Grab’s ASEAN-wide user base offers, even to leading financial institutions.

According to Bank of Thailand, 68% of all transactions in Thailand are carried out in cash, which costs the Thai economy millions of Baht each year. The strategic partnership will make it easier for consumers and entrepreneurs across Thailand to adopt cashless transactions in a number of ways.

First, KBank and Grab will jointly launch the ‘GrabPay by KBank’ mobile wallet in the Grab app which is targeted to launch as soon as early 2019. This will allow Grab customers to pay for transport and delivery services, transfer funds to friends and family, purchase products and services online, and make QR-code payments in restaurants and shops across Thailand. Thanks to PromptPay, Thailand’s national e-payments scheme, all QR-enabled merchants in Thailand will be able to immediately accept ‘GrabPay by KBank’ upon activation.

Second, beyond the wallet, features from KBank’s “K PLUS” app and the Grab app will be integrated across both apps starting in 2019. This will enable users to benefit from seamless services across the KBank and Grab ecosystem. Finally, KBank and Grab will also work together to jointly offer products to their customer base, including loans to help merchants grow their business and access to Grab for Business to improve corporate transport expense management as well as increase brand awareness and engagement through Grab’s advertising solution.

Since launching the Grab Financial Group in March 2018, Grab’s fintech ecosystem has seen incredible growth:

• March 2018: Launch of Grab Financial, through a joint venture with Credit Saison to offer credit to Southeast Asia’s unbanked and a partnership with Chubb to offer in-app insurance solutions
• May 2018: Announcement of strategic partnership with Maybank, Southeast Asia’s fourth largest bank by assets to drive acceptance of GrabPay in Malaysia
• June 2018: Launch of GrabPay wallet in Malaysia
• June 2018: Strategic partnership with OVO, the leading mobile wallet in Indonesia, to enable OVO payments services on the Grab app in Indonesia
• September 2018: Announcement of strategic partnership with Moca, a leading digital payments service in Vietnam to launch the ‘GrabPay by Moca’ wallet
• September 2018: Announcement of Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas awarding the e-money license for the Philippines to Grab
• October 2018: Announcement of strategic partnership with Mastercard to launch prepaid cards for Southeast Asia’s unbanked and underbanked population

“We approach the challenge of cashless payments from a consumer perspective. Users don’t want a separate e-wallet for every type of purchase. By opening up our platform to leading financial institutions, we ensure our users can go beyond the Grab platform and pay for all types of services, from streetside stalls to e-commerce, online services and financial services increasingly as well,” concluded Reuben Lai, Senior Managing Director, Grab Financial.

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Paving the way for KBank to approach new generations of audiences and reaffirm digital platform leadership.

Beacon Venture Capital (Beacon VC) completes an investment in Ookbee, the provider of Southeast Asia’s top digital lifestyle platform, to support the launch of C Channel Thailand (TH). Under collaboration of Ookbee and C Channel Japan (JP), this joint venture will offer online lifestyle content, along with another new business to be announced within the first quarter of this year. Through this partnership, KASIKORNBANK (KBank) aims to approach greater audiences of new generations, which will reemphasize its digital platform leadership.

Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon VC, said Ookbee is one of the promising Thai startups, which has successfully redefined the digital publication landscape for the Southeast Asian market. At the early stage of business, Ookbee provided e-book products with content provided by publication companies. Currently, its products have diversified to professional- and user-generated content, focusing on new trends and digital innovations with comprehensive online payment channels.

In addition, Ookbee is planning to launch another new and exciting business in 1Q18, which will not only help strengthen businesses that produce content for Ookbee’s current platform, but also spur the creation of better quality and more diverse content for service users, being part of Ookbee’s endeavor to meet the lifestyle needs of millennials. Beacon VC has set a target that such an investment will allow KBank to reach audiences, specifically post-millennials, in unique and creative ways.

Mr. Natavudh Pungcharoenpong, CEO of Ookbee said that their vision is to grow and expand platforms to accommodate creative content creation and consumption, as well as strengthening economic returns for creative communities. Meanwhile, C Channel Thailand (TH) is an online VDO fashion magazine for women, featuring creative lifestyle content. It was launched by Ookbee in 2017 and has been popular since then. C Channel Thailand (TH) can be viewed via th.cchan.tv and www.facebook.com/cchannel.thailand. It has over 250 million monthly views and over 150,000 average views per clip.

The partnership with Beacon VC will help Ookbee add value to C Channel Thailand and introduce new business to the market within 1Q18. The cooperation marks a significant step toward complementing Ookbee’s current digital lifestyle businesses and strengthening its ties with creative communities to enhance productive collaboration and foster its business presence.

Since its inception in 2011, Ookbee has become No. 1 provider of digital lifestyle platform in Southeast Asia with over 10 million users and more than 1 billion page views per month. Ookbee provides a variety of informative content and entertainment on various modes of platforms, including e-books, translated novels, comics, music, videos, blogs, story chat, horoscope, from the company’s producing teams and user-generated contents. The startup is expected to scale up to Series C funding round by the end of this year.

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Thailand’s leading end-to-end event management platform under the brand “Event Pop” raises Series A round from Intouch Holdings PLC (through InVent) and Beacon Venture Capital.

 

The recent winner of the national award in the ‘Rising Star Startup’ category at Startup Thailand 2017 will use the capital to develop new services in Thailand in addition to its core ticketing services, as well as exploring overseas expansion.

 

Established in 2015 and based in Bangkok, Event Pop is Thailand’s leading end-to-end event management platform with comprehensive technology-oriented services from ticketing and on-site access control to in-event cashless payment solutions and CRM suites. Event Pop is on a mission to enable the best live performance experiences to organizers and event attendees through the best in-class technology.

 

With only 2 years under its belt Event Pop has already served over 3,000 events including festivals, live shows, sports, and businesses seminars. Progressively improving all parts of the platform through expertise and partnerships with the clients, Event Pop strives to enable all event promoters and organizers to grow by providing insights, deeper understanding of attendees and simpler engagement in both online and offline channels.

 

Event Pop has recently launched in-event cashless payment solution Spark in April 2017, serving one of Thailand’s most renowned events with more than 40,000 attendees over the course of 3 days with stability and zero down time. Event Pop is also rolling out new products and services in 2017, which focuses on three main categories: Festivals / Entertainment, Business and Sports. One of the products will increase efficiency and precision of online marketing by utilizing attendee’s interests, spending, and post-event behaviors, and another product will serve the valued attendees, increase engagement and discover a breeze.

 

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Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India (“Vertex SEA/India”) announces KASIKORNBANK (KBank) as its first Thailand Limited Partner (LP) and the first Bank investor for the Fund III.

Besides providing insights into frontier opportunities in the region, Vertex’s global network will also enable KBank to leapfrog into the world arena and be kept abreast of innovative technology and business models in other geographies.

KBank, one of the largest banks in Thailand, has recently launched Beacon Venture Capital, a new organization which invests into Venture Capital Funds and startups with financial innovations that align with KBank’s strategies. The initial capital of Beacon VC is THB 1 billion; its investment policy includes direct investments in Thai and foreign startups, and investments via leading VC funds. The company is led by Mr. Thanapong Na Ranong as Managing Director.

Fintech is one of the target focus areas for this fund, as digital technology unlocks value in the financial sector. Vertex SEA/India has invested in various fintech opportunities including Instarem, an international online remittance platform; Validus, an SME lending platform; and Turnkey Lender, a cloud-based bank-grade loan management platform. Mr Chua is ambitious about this prospect: “We intend to tap on KBank’s knowledge as we invest in the Fintech sector in the region.”

Vertex Ventures SEA Management, licensed by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), raises this latest fund on the heels of multiple growing successes in its previous portfolios, most notably, Grab, which raised US$2.5 billion from Softbank and Didi Chuxing in July 2017. Vertex SEA/India is also the first institutional investor in notable companies in the region including Patsnap, M17/Paktor and Reebonz. Fund III will continue Vertex’s strategy of investing in promising, disruptive and transformational opportunities and build them into global champions. On the back of its track record and leading position in the region, Fund III has exceeded its original target fund size of US$150M. It is now working towards final closing.

 

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Thailand-based online accounting SaaS company FlowAccount raises a $1.15 million Pre-Series A round from SBI Investment, Beacon Venture Capital, Golden Gate Ventures and 500 TukTuks.

 

The winner of AIS The Startup 2015 expects swift customer base expansion. Currently, over 10,000 companies are active FlowAccount subscribers, with more than 100,000 tax invoices issued each month via the system. In response to government policies, the company plans to provide e-tax invoices and act as a platform to connect other solutions for convenient and efficient back office operations. Among them are ‘Food Solution’ – a digital solution for comprehensive restaurant management – that was launched in May; a Payroll app linked to KBank’s K PLUS SME application, which was introduced in August to facilitate easy, speedy salary payments to employees; and Fastpay that facilitates easier payments to suppliers. This allows FlowAccount customers to conduct financial transactions faster and more conveniently, thus, they aim to further upgrade their system to perform even greater feats in cooperation with business partners.

 

 

FlowAccount was primarily designed for startups. Their very user friendly automated accounting software enables operators to send out billings within two minutes, even though they may not have an accounting background. With just one click, they can use a free service with basic functions such as sending price quotations, trade invoices and even generate tax invoices. Additional functions include inventory management, accrued-expense balance, staff salaries and other reports that help startup entrepreneurs to run their business professionally. Users can access the online accounting service anywhere they are and at any time using a computer or the mobile application available for both iOS and Android, in Thai or English. FlowAccount also regularly organizes workshops to provide tips on basic accounting for startup entrepreneurs and SME owners.

 

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