Infina, an investment decision app that seeks to become the “Robinhood of Vietnam,” announced that it has raised $2 million in an oversubscribed Seed funding round backed by Saison Capital, Venturra Discovery, 1982 Ventures, 500 Startups, Nextrans, executives at Google and Netflix, and other angel investors.
The company was founded by James Vuong, an engineer-turned-VC-turned-startup founder who has a track record of startups and investments in Silicon Valley and Vietnam. In 2008, he returned to Vietnam as VP of Investment and a Kauffman Fellow at IDG Ventures. In January 2021, Vuong launched Infina after his prior company was acquired by the Japanese giant LINE Corporation.
Infina features an easy-to-use user interface and in-app educational content. The app currently serves tens of thousands of users with financial partners that include some of Vietnam’s largest fund managers such as Dragon Capital Vietnam, ACB Capital, Mirae Asset Fund Management, and Viet Capital Asset Management.
Infina aims to improve accessibility of investment decision-making points. “We are very transparent in communications on risk and returns, profits and fees, and that’s our advantage compared to other platforms,” said Vuong.
According to Vuong, Infina will use the fresh funding to fuel its growth and expand product offerings, as well as to hire people with technical and investment backgrounds to further develop the company’s know-your-customer (KYC) system for better risk appetite analysis and to improve asset class evaluation. While Infina seeks to expand regionally in the future, the company will continue to focus on Vietnam in the short term, where there are plenty of growth opportunities.
Infina has assembled a leadership team with experience in the US, Singapore, and Japan capital markets. It is backed by an experienced board of advisors from Vietnam’s leading financial institutions such as Hanoi Saigon Corporation (HSC), ACB Securities, among others.
The startup seeks to tap into a growing opportunity in the retail investing space in Vietnam. The country of 97 million population has more than 75 percent internet users transacting money digitally, but only roughly 3.14 million–or 3.2 percent of the population–investing in securities, says a statement from Infina.
While capital investing penetration remains relatively low, Vietnam outperforms its neighbor Indonesia by 3x, the latter only having 1 percent penetration. By seeking to be the “Robinhood of Vietnam,” Infina’s target demographic includes mostly millennials.
In addition, according to Vietnam Securities Custody Agency, about 500,000 trading accounts were opened in the first five months of 2021–an increase of 20 percent from the whole of 2020, underscoring the growth potential in this space.
“Retail investing in Vietnam is at an inflection point and we have seen multiple other emerging markets reach this break-out point. With an experienced team that is passionate about financial literacy and education, Infina is well-positioned to ride this wave of growth,” said Chris Sirise, Partner at Saison Capital.
Other notable financial advisory startups that have raised capital recently include StashAway, Bibit, and Ajaib.
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