Funding Societies raises US$25 million from sovereign wealth fund Cool Japan Fund
Their partnership will tap the 15,000 business establishments set up by Japanese companies in South-east Asia
FUNDING Societies has raised US$25 million from Japan’s sovereign wealth fund Cool Japan Fund (CJF) – the first investment by the fund into a fintech in South-east Asia, it said on Thursday (Dec 19).
The funds will be used to knuckle down on the fintech’s core small and medium enterprise (SME) financing business across all of its five markets of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The new payments business established in 2022 will also utilise the funds to further expand.
CJF and Funding Societies will be partnering to leverage each others’ strengths to serve SMEs in South-east Asia and to provide financial services to support Japanese companies. The two parties aim to foster commercial relationships between SMEs in the region and Japanese companies. This will help support business expansion by Japanese companies and expand demand for their products.
“Together with CJF, we intend to strengthen these ties,” said Kelvin Teo, co-founder and group chief executive officer of Funding Societies.
The partnership will tap the 15,000 business establishments set up by Japanese companies in South-east Asia.
“With the shift of interest from Japanese firms steering towards South-east Asia, we believe our partnership with Funding Societies through this investment will grow the overseas demand of Japanese products and services, in turn, benefiting Japan’s economy as well as the local SMEs doing business with Japanese companies,” said Kenichi Kawasaki, president and CEO of CJF.
This funding follows an undisclosed strategic investment by Maybank, as well as expanding a credit facility with HSBC to US$100 million, tapping a third facility with the bank’s Asean Growth Fund. Funding Societies has achieved more than US$4 billion in business financing, serving about 100,000 SMEs to date.
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