Former Guavapass CEO snags US$6.3m for new Singapore-based financing startup Jenfi

SINGAPORE-BASED Jenfi, which loans money to entrepreneurs as a form of growth capital, has raised US$6.3 million in a Series A round led by Monk's Hill Ventures.

Other investors who participated in the round include Golden Equator Ventures and Korea Investment Partners (via the GEC-KIP Fund), 8VC, ICU Ventures, and Taurus Ventures. (See Amendment Note.)

Jenfi loans up to US$500,000 to businesses as a form of non-dilutive capital. It then takes a "small" percentage of the startup's revenue back as repayment. The revenue-based financing startup plans to target digital businesses that are underserved by traditional lenders.

Instead of looking at financial statements alone, Jenfi said it uses alternative data sources to monitor and underwrite businesses. These data sources include monitoring accounting software such as Xero and Quickbooks; payment gateways like Stripe; merchant platforms including Shopify and Shopee; as well as digital advertising.

Through these sources, Jenfi can "quickly assess and continuously monitor" the business activity and health of the companies, it said. As such, Jenfi added that it can determine the creditworthiness of a business and also how efficient they are with their growth spending.

Fresh funds will be used for product development, customer acquisition, and expansion in South-east Asia. It expects to deploy US$15 million by July 2022.

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A Y Combinator graduate, Jenfi has loaned capital to over 100 businesses so far, including Tier One Entertainment, Pay With Split, and HomeBase.

Jeffrey Liu, co-founder and chief executive of Jenfi, said that having been a startup founder previously, he understands the pain points founders face - the desire to accelerate a business but not being able to qualify for traditional sources of credit.

"Online merchants and digital-enabled businesses are burgeoning and these same businesses are taking advantage of the exponential growth of e-commerce and digital marketing," said Mr Liu, who was previously the co-founder and CEO of fitness startup Guavapass. "It's time for lenders to evolve."

This Series A round follows a recent US$25 million debt round raised from San Francisco-based Arc Labs. Existing investors include Atlas Ventures, Next Billion Ventures, Stormbreaker Ventures, VentureSouq Capital, Iterative, and Y Combinator.

 Amendment Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Golden Equator Capital was an investor. Jenfi has since corrected its press release and said that the investor was in fact Golden Equator Ventures and Korea Investment Partners (via the GEC-KIP Fund). The article above has been revised to reflect this.