Aspire, a Singapore-based Neobank, is making progress towards its goals with a $158million Series B. The round included $58 million equity and $100 million debt. It was led by an undisclosed global growth equity investor who focuses on fintech. Other participants were DST Global Partners (CE Innovation Fund), B Capital Partners, B Capital Partners, MassMutual Ventures and Picus Capital. Fasanara Capital provided the debt capital.
Angel investors also came from notable fintech startups like Wise cofounder Taavet Hinrikus, Qonto cofounders Alexandre Ports and Steve Anavi, Uala founder Pierpaolo Barieri; Xendit cofounder Moses Lo; Payfazz Co-founder Hendra Kik; and Clara cofounder Gerry Colyer.
Aspire was established in 2018 to provide working capital loans to small- and medium-sized business owners. However, the company quickly adopted a multi-product strategy. The company's services include cross-border business bank accounts, corporate cards, and automated invoice processing. All of these are linked to financial management software. Aspire Kickstart, a service that allows Singaporean companies to incorporate, is also offered by the company.
Aspire has opened more than 10,000 business accounts. They transact approximately $2 billion annually and doubled in the five months starting in May.
TechCrunch's Andrea Baronchelli, chief executive officer and co-founder of the company, explained that they were trying to connect traditional banking services with modern software. "We realized that this is the greatest problem," Andrea Baronchelli said. You have access to cards and accounts, but they are not powered with software. Our vision is to combine them and create an operating system that allows this software and banking product to co-exist.
Aspire has operations in Singapore and Indonesia, as well as Vietnam. Aspire is also preparing the groundwork (including regulatory) to expand into other Southeast Asian countries. Baronchelli, however, said it was too early to reveal which markets Aspire is focusing on.
Baronchelli found that an average SME uses seven providers to manage their bank accounts, credit, foreign exchange, payroll management, accounting, and invoices. This was based on company research and interviews with business owners. Aspire's goal is for it to be a single-stop shop that provides all the solutions for SMEs. Aspires customers sign up when they first need a business account or corporate card. Then they can start to use its other products as their businesses grow.
Aspire aims to attract attention of larger SMEs with business accounts by offering value-added products such as expense management software and credit solutions.
Aspires credit cards, working capital loans, and credit cards start at $50,000. They can go upto $300,000. But, businesses can customize their credit lines to grow. Baronchelli stated that we had to do this because our segment was a moving target. Because our clients and businesses grow, we cannot be too attached to amounts.
Its plan to create an ecosystem from the ground up is what sets it apart from other fintechs offering business accounts like Wise, Volopay and Revolut. Aspire is currently building its payroll system because many of its clients have staff in other countries. Aspire is adding new features to its invoice management software to make it easier to reconcile payments and account balances.
