Injected by East Ventures, Finantier Focuses on Expansion

Financial startup or fintech, Finantier, received seed funding led by East Ventures and Global Founders Capital. This open finance start-up is also focusing on expanding to more regions this year.

Finantier did not specify the value of the investment obtained. However, the number is seven digits or 20 times more than the previous pre-seed valuation.

Other investors participating in the early-stage funding round include Future Shape, Partech Partners, co-inventor of iPhone, GMO VenturePartners and Saison Capital.

Several previous investors such as AC Ventures, Genesia Ventures, Y Combinator, Two Culture Capital and a number of individual investors (angel investors) participated.

Co-founder and COO of Finantier Edwin Kusuma said the additional capital will be used to increase and enlarge product offerings.

Expansion to Many Regions in Indonesia

In addition, the company will expand to many areas in the country. Currently, Finantier operates in Singapore and Indonesia. The financial startup plans to double the number of employees.

Previously, Finantier enlarged the team more than five times to 50 employees. To strengthen the advisory board, Finantier also recruited Francesco Simoneschi. He previously served as Co-Founder and CEO of Truelayer.

Finantier offers services based on application programming interfaces (API) and supporting infrastructure for fintech product development.

The service is claimed to speed up time-to-market and cut the cost of developing tailor-made solutions (tailored).

“Finantier makes it easy to access financial services for millions of people who don’t have bank accounts, from food stalls to gig economy workers,” said Edwin in a press release, Wednesday (16/5).

The startup has worked with more than 150 companies. Finantier also increased the number of clients and partnerships by more than 50% per month this year.

Founded in the Midst of a Pandemic

Finantier was founded by Edwin, Diego Rojas and Keng Low in the middle of last year. Rojas is a former CTO of several startups in Singapore and other countries.

He also has decades of experience as a software engineer for corporations in the United States (US), China, and Southeast Asia.

Low is also a software engineer, having worked in Silicon Valley. Before he decided to join Finantier, he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at East Ventures.

Meanwhile, Edwin worked at Google and held a chief-level position in several Indonesian fintech companies. Rojas said that open finance services from Finantier made financial access accessible to more people.

“This facilitates the open exchange of consumer data so that companies can leverage it to reach more customers while creating more personalized services,” he said.

Majority of Southeast Asian Adults Don’t Have Access to Financial Services

According to Bain’s research, more than 70% of adults in Southeast Asia do not have access to financial services. There are also millions of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) that face wide financial disparities.

The East Ventures Digital Competitiveness Index 2020 report also shows that the biggest gap in Indonesia’s digital economy development is the financial inclusion category.

There is a wide gap between residents in Java and other islands in terms of access to financial services, the value of loans through fintech, and digital payment transactions.

This limits Indonesian financial institutions from accessing consumer banking and financial data, thereby preventing them from providing financial services such as payments, loans and insurance.

“With better access to financial services, they can live better and can contribute to Indonesia’s economic development,” said East Ventures Co-founder and Managing Partner Willson Weather.

“We had hope for Finantier from the start and believe that they will play an important role in realizing that hope by connecting those without financial access to fintech and financial institutions in various countries,” added Willson.