(L-R) Funding Societies Co-Founders Kelvin Teo (Group CEO) and Reynold Wijaya
Singapore-based SME digital financing platform Funding Societies (known as Modalku in Indonesia) said today it has secured US$144 million in an oversubscribed Series C extension round (equity).
In addition, it has received US$150 million in debt lines from institutional lenders across Europe, the US, and Asia.
The equity round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from new investors, including Vietnamese tech giant VNG Corporation, Rapyd Ventures, EDBI, Indies Capital, K3 Ventures, and Ascend Vietnam Ventures.
The extension round comes on the back of Funding Societies’s US$45 million Series C raised between 2020 and 2021.
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The funds will propel fintech firm’s expense management and B2B payments services for MSMEs across Southeast Asia.
It also revealed that it provided US$16 million to former and existing employees via its stock option plan in the form of share buyback.
Started in 2015 by Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya, Funding Societies intends to fill the region’s US$300 billion financing gap by offering microloans from US$500 up to US$1.5 million, which can be disbursed in as fast as 24 hours.
Instead of using a traditional corporate supply chain approach to financial inclusion, Funding Societies follows an AI-led credit model to provide value-added products to under-served businesses.
The digital lender operates in five countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. To date, it claims to have disbursed over US$2 billion in business financing to MSMEs through more than 4.9 million loan transactions in Southeast Asia.
The press release also mentioned that Funding Societies’s annualised loan origination exceeded US$1 billion in Q4 2021.
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A portion of the group’s outstanding loan exposure comes from Europe-based institutional lenders.
Last October, Funding Societies secured US$18 million in debt funding led by Helicap Investments, Social Impact Debt Fund, and an unnamed Japanese financial services group. This was preceded by a round of investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. A few months earlier, it had secured US$40 million.
Funding Societies’s other investors are SoftBank Ventures Asia, Sequoia Capital India, Alpha JWC Ventures, SMBC Bank, BRI Ventures, Endeavor, SGInnovate, Qualgro, and Golden Gate Ventures, among others.
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