SPUN, an Indonesia-based travel ancillary startup building artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled visa infrastructure, has closed a seed funding round to a total of $1.8 million, to support initial expansion into key Southeast Asian markets, as visa processes remain complex and fragmented across the region.
SPUN said in a statement on Monday that the latest round was led by Genesia Ventures, with participation from Antler, Spiral Ventures, Iterative, Kopital Ventures, and angel investor Kum Hong Siew, former Managing Director of Airbnb China.
The seed funding will enable SPUN’s expansion into key Southeast Asian markets, deepen automation capabilities, and strengthen integrations with travel platforms and B2B partners.
“We see visas as a core travel ancillary that has been underserved for too long,” said Christa Sabathaly, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of SPUN.
“The inefficiencies are the same whether you’re applying for yourself or a company managing visas at scale. In less than a year, we’ve been helping over 200 companies and thousands of individual applicants,
“By building a single intelligence layer that works across both segments, we’re creating infrastructure that can scale
regionally while delivering reliability for both individual travelers and travel partners,” she added.
SPUN is a travel ancillary platform, starting with inbound and outbound visa permits as a foundational layer of cross-border mobility.
Unlike traditional visa agents, SPUN uses purpose-built AI agents to bring structure, predictability, and reliability to tens of millions of travelers navigating unclear and frequently changing visa requirements.
Within its first 12 months of operation, SPUN has processed thousands of inbound and outbound visa applications with a 99 percent approval rate.
All applications were processed for paying customers at market price, rather than through heavily subsidized models.
By focusing on a single, high-stakes vertical, SPUN is able to scale across markets without rebuilding its system for each country, making visa processing more predictable as cross-border travel and work continue to grow.
The platform supports 300+ visa types across 90+ countries, serving both individual applicants and business to business (B2B) customers, including over 200 travel agents and resellers.
SPUN’s service is also embedded across major Southeast Asian travel platforms such as Klook, Traveloka, Tiket, and Nusatrip.
From the perspective of its investors, SPUN is addressing a structural problem that exists across Southeast Asian markets, where visa and permit processes remain fragmented despite growing demand for mobility.
“Most people still think of visas as a manual service business. We see it as an infrastructure problem,
“Visa processes are increasingly digital, but the experience remains frustratingly complex,” said Takahiro Suzuki, General Partner at Genesia Ventures.
“SPUN is building the intelligence and workflow layer that helps standardize visa processes across Southeast Asia,
“That combination of long-term perspective and early traction is what gave us conviction to lead the round,” he added.
Agung Hadinegoro, Partner at Antler Indonesia, said from day one, the team demonstrated global ambition alongside a very practical approach to execution.
“They proved early on that visa friction is not an Indonesia-only problem by showing real demand and repeat usage across multiple markets,” he added.
It is noted as outbound travel from Indonesia recovers, visa complexity remains a major bottleneck.
More than 20 million passengers across 100,000 international flights connect Indonesians to global destinations each year, yet visa requirements are often unclear and frequently changing.
According to the Henley Passport Index, Indonesian passport holders require visas for 106 of 195 countries, creating delays and uncertainty for individuals and making cross-border planning costly for businesses.
Similar fragmentation affects both outbound and inbound permits across Southeast Asia, pointing to a broader infrastructure gap as global travel and cross-border work
continue to expand.
SPUN was founded by Christa Sabathaly and Dilla Anindita, who met while working at LINE Indonesia.
Sabathaly brings a background in economics and digital marketing, with prior experience at Google, while Anindita was a product lead at Grab and Cookpad, and experienced
firsthand the fragility of cross-border relocation when her role in Japan ended on her first day.
As international travel and cross-border work continue to expand, SPUN aims to establish itself as a core travel ancillary platform, starting with visas — one of the most anxiety-inducing barriers to mobility — and using technology to bring clarity, efficiency, and predictability to cross-border movement in the region.