Jenfi, a Singapore-based fintech firm has raised $6.6 million in a successful Pre-Series B fundraising round led by Headline Asia.
The round saw participation from Monk’s Hill Ventures, ICU Ventures, Granite Oak, Korea Investment Partners & Golden Equator Capital, Atlas Ventures, including other existing early investors, Jenfi said in a statement on Tuesday.
With the additional funding, Jenfi aims to solidify its position as a leading fintech lender for emerging online businesses, such as e-commerce, software as a service (SAAS), and consumer-tech companies.
The fintech firm plans to reinforce its existing market presence in Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia by broadening its customer base and fostering closer relationships with them while expanding into new markets across Southeast Asia, bringing its innovative financing solutions to a wider range of digital businesses and aiding in the development of the region’s digital economy.
The new funding will also allow Jenfi to accelerate its technological development and enhance the speed and accuracy of its credit underwriting and risk assessment capabilities.
This enables the company to better cater to its existing clients, identify new opportunities, and natively integrate its credit decisions and underwriting system with platform partners.
“We are honoured to be backed by such a distinguished group of investors as we strive to push the boundaries of innovation in the fintech lending industry,
“This funding will enable us to expedite our vision for Jenfi and expand our offerings to a broader customer base across the region,” said Jeffrey Liu, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Jenfi.
Founded by Jeffrey Liu and Justin Louie, Jenfi is a financial technology company that provides revenue-based financing and analytics to digital native businesses in Southeast Asia.
Branded as Growth Capital as a Service (GCaaS), the fintech firm offers more flexible funding options to digital-native businesses looking to scale, unlocking additional marketing, inventory and growth spend.
Jenfi has developed a proprietary risk assessment engine that can evaluate both a business’s creditworthiness and its marketing growth efficiency.
Its non-dilutive financing is highly flexible and bespoke to the requirements of each individual business.
To date, Jenfi has deployed over $25 million to support the growth of more than 600 companies, fueling the development of the digital economy.
These digital-native companies including business to business (B2B) and SaaS businesses such as Gushcloud, Ralali, Hello Health, Lamer Fashion, Buy2sell, and Mystifly.
Unlike traditional lenders where the focus lies primarily on evaluating financial statements, Jenfi integrates seamlessly with a wide array of data sources to monitor and underwrite
businesses, such as accounting software (e.g. Xero and QuickBooks), payment gateways (e.g. Stripe and Braintree), eCommerce platforms (e.g. Shopify and Haravan), online marketplaces (e.g. Shopee and Lazada) and digital advertising (e.g. Google, Facebook, and Instagram ads).
With real-time access to these data sources, Jenfi can quickly access, leverage and continuously monitor the business activity and health of companies, obtaining real-time data on revenue growth and marketing return on investment (ROI).
Jenfi’s automated underwriting platform enables same-day decision-making and disbursement, streamlining the lending process for borrowers.
“We have been continuously conducting research on revenue-based financing and have talked to almost every single player in this field in Asia. Jenfi absolutely stood out to us,” said Aki Okamoto, Partner of Headline Asia, and Jonathan M. Hayashi, Principal of Headline Asia.
According to him, their technology, product, operation, and traction are significantly better than their peers.
Headline is a venture capital firm established in 1998, actively on the ground in seven cities around the world.
With a presence in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Brazil, the firm invests across geographies, leading rounds at every stage.
The firm has invested in and supported companies such as Acorns, Bumble, Farfetch, Freee, GoPuff, The RealReal, WealthNavi, and YeahKa.
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