Singapore-headquartered financial technology platform for the underserved middle class Surfin raises $12.5 million from Insignia Ventures Partners.
This funding comes as Surfin serves 60 million lives across eight countries in three continents, with roughly $2.7 billion in cumulative transactions, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Singapore, Surfin launched with consumer lending before expanding across financial services such as payments/remittance, credit card issuance, and wealth management. Using Al and analytics, Surfin strives to provide an ecosystem of transparent and innovative financial services to the growing, underbanked middle class.
The company is present in Indonesia (since 2018), Vietnam (2018), Mexico (2018), Philippines (2018), Nigeria (2019), Kenya (2019), India (2021), Uganda (2022), and Australia (2023).
As it expanded its presence over the years, the company has accumulated numerous licenses across multiple jurisdictions over the years. In Surfin’s largest market, Indonesia, the company has P2P, mutual fund distribution, remittance, and payment gateway (incoming) licenses.
This Series A round is Surfin’s first round of external funding as the company has been bootstrapped since inception and lending is done out of its own balance sheet with no third-party debt.
Surfin was founded by Yanan Wu. Wu has over 26 years of global investment experience, serving institutions and family offices, including stints at CITIC Prudential Fund and TD Asset Management Canada.
“Surfin’s vision has always been to build an ecosystem of financial technology services on top of our existing scalable and sustainable risk management system powered by AI and big data,” Wu said.
In 2023, Surfin’s wealth management product, Ayovest, launched in Indonesia, as a mutual fund trading platform for young, first time investors to invest productively and safely, starting from IDR 10,000. Ayovest has been operating effectively and has been licensed by the OJK since 2023.
Then in 2023, Surfin’s credit card business was established in Mexico, “Sufinc”. Sufinc was born out of a partnership with Visa for a credit card to bolster Surfin’s consumer finance presence in Central America.
Monthly expenses can be paid at any point within the year, businesses can go months without needing to pay interest, and there are no annual commissions. This partnership with Visa allows Sufinc to be accepted at any establishment and online, anywhere in the world.
All these products in Surfin’s ecosystem are ultimately powered by a unified credit scoring engine, powered by AI and data analytics. This core technology has allowed Surfin to sustainably lend at scale across different geographies. It also unlocks the company’s entry into other use cases.
More than 2500 people across the globe have joined Dr Wu on Surfin’s mission. Its leadership team includes former Shopee, Akulaku, and Baidu executives. Surfin is also advised by a board composed of accomplished, multi-hyphenate finance executives globally.