Singapore’s Funding Societies lands $25m investment from Cool Japan Fund
SME digital finance platform Funding Societies has secured a $25 million equity investment from Japan’s sovereign wealth fund, Cool Japan Fund (CJF).
Funding Societies bags $25 million investment
Funding Societies will use the investment to “deepen its core business in SME financing” in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, while also seeking to further develop the payments business it launched in 2022.
This deepening will include the use of AI to “digitise and automate lending origination processes”, with a focus on “helping businesses get paid faster through innovative receivables and financing solutions”.
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Singapore, the company claims to have provided over $4 billion in business financing to around 100,000 SMEs to date.
As the fund’s first investment into a Southeast Asian fintech, Funding Societies has now entered a partnership with CJF.
This partnership will look to guide Funding Societies’ entry into Japan and “support Japanese companies expanding overseas” specifically, according to co-founder and group CEO Kelvin Teo.
“Many businesses we serve in Southeast Asia are Japanese firms, suppliers and/or customers to them,” Teo explains. “Together with CJF, we intend to further strengthen these ties.”
The equity raise builds on an undisclosed investment made by Malaysia’s Maybank in September, as well as a third annual credit facility secured with HSBC’s ASEAN Growth Fund in November.
The company previously bagged $27 million in a 2023 debt funding round led by AlteriQ Global, alongside an additional $7.5 million in debt financing from the Norwegian Development Financial Institution (DFI), Norfund.
