Fundiin co-founders Cuong Anh Nguyen (CEO) and Nam Hoang Vo (CTO)
Fundiin, a Vietnamese buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) startup, announced today it has closed an oversubscribed seed round at US$1.8 million.
The round saw participation from a slew of new and existing investors, including Japan’s Genesia Ventures and JAFCO Asia, Singapore-based Trihill Capital and 1982 Ventures, and Vietnam-based Zone Startups Ventures.
Some former executives of global BNPL giant Affirm (Xffirmers) also backed Fundiin’s latest funding.
According to a press statement, Fundiin will utilise the capital to expand its operations, strengthen the executive team and press ahead with its upcoming Series A round.
Founded in 2018 by CEO Cuong Anh Nguyen and CTO Nam Hoang Vo, Fundiin started as a digital payment solution provider, targeting Vietnam’s population of 97 million and rising middle-class consumers. Later in mid-2020, the company started to offer a BNPL option to consumers at the point of sale, free of charge. This method helps customers pay in instalments with or without interest while paying providers a total amount upfront.
“Lending products have earned a bad reputation as money-draining traps that leave consumers stuck in a cycle of debt,” Fundiin CEO and co-founder Cuong Anh Nguyen, stated. “Vietnamese consumers are in urgent need of products like Fundiin that work for them and protect their interest.”
Also read: Why BNPL will change the payment landscape in Vietnam?
Fundiin claims to have collaborated with over 100 merchants, including some of the country’s well-known retailers such as Lug, Vua Nem, Mat Viet, Giant International. It boasts of increasing retailers’ sales by 30 per cent without utilising a credit card or an application.
In July, Fundiin also teamed up with Vietnamese B2B e-commerce company Sapo to provide the BNPL payment option at checkout for Sapo’s 100,000 merchant client base.
BNPL is gaining ground among other payment options such as credit cards, instalment loans and mobile wallets’ lending products as it is “faster, easier and free for consumers.” This solution has long been going places in the world but has only picked up pace in Southeast Asia in recent years with some success cases from PayLater in Indonesia, and Atome and Hoolah across Hongkong, Singapore and Malaysia.
Amid the pandemic, the method is ripe for an explosion as it is able to assist consumers in their shift to online shopping. According to JP Morgan, Vietnam’s e-commerce is forecast to increase 19 per cent per year to 2021, urging global players to take bets on the BNPL sector.
Last month, Singapore-based FinAccel, the parent company of Indonesia’s BNPL giant Kredivo, formed a joint venture with local investment firm Phoenix Holdings, signalling its intention to penetrate the Vietnamese market.
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Image credit: Fundiin
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