Malysian supply chain finance platform CapBay has just announced that it has secured $20 million in a Series A round of funding led by Singaporean venture capital investment firm KK Fund. The rest of the fund was from multiple angel investors who have had interests in startups involved in FinTech. CapBay plans to use the fresh capital to extend its market and work on its current tech to create a more efficient financing platform.

KK Fund has been investing in tech startups in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan since 2015. It has been expanding its portfolio in multiple businesses around Southeast Asia. This includes its first investment in CapBay’s seed funding round that amounted to $477,000 in 2017. More recently, KK Fund has also partnered up with IGPI Singapore in a joint venture to provide an acceleration program for businesses in Southeast Asia to be launched in early 2021. The VC firm has also partnered with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to digitally bridge global investors with local startups.

CapBay, formerly known as CapitalBay, is a Kuala Lumpur-based fintech startup involved in supply chain finance and peer-to-peer (P2P) financing. Since being established in 2016, it has been helping numerous businesses across Southeast Asia by providing innovative financing solutions. The company announced that the fund will be used to expand its market reach for new potential platform investors and to further improve its technology in providing financing solutions for underserved SMEs. The company has had an impressive track record having facilitated over $197.6 million (MYR800 million) across roughly 9,000 transactions since 2017.

In December 2020, the company announced that it had reached a total of around $24.7 million (MYR100 million) through P2P financing across 500 financing notes. This amount was achieved in record time as the P2P platform had only been launched in March 2020.

In September 2020, CapBay secured a partnership with Telekom Malaysia Bhd. for the telecom giant’s Vendor Financing Program. CapBay has also partnered up with Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad after acquiring a 49 percent stake in the Kenanga Capital Islamic Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of KIBB. The two companies will be entering a joint venture to create the country’s first Islamic Supply Chain Finance platform.

Featured image: Edwin Tan, Dion Tan, Darrel Ang, and Ang Xing Xian, Founders of CapBay