Grab Ventures Velocity Indonesia’s 3rd batch
Finance
Fintech, data science company Oriente secures US$20M from Silverhorn Group
Oriente, a tech and data science startup that seeks to create opportunity through financial access for Southeast Asia, announced today it has secured US$20 million debt funding from Silverhorn Group, a Hong Kong-based multi-asset investment firm.
The funding, which can increase up to US$50 million, will be used to grow Oriente’s loan book and extend the reach of its inclusive and affordable digital-credit and Pay Later solutions to the undervalued and credit-starved consumers and micro-enterprises in the Philippines.
Commenting on the deal, Geoffrey Prentice, Co-founder of Oriente, said: “As we enter the next stage of growth on our mission to helping ignite economic opportunity for tens of millions of consumers and micro-enterprises, the support we receive from our debt partners is critical.”
Headquartered in Hong Kong, Oriente is building solutions that provide real-time credit scoring, digital and O2O lending and other tailored financial services to millions in Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economies. The company has two app-based ventures, Cashalo in the Philippines and Finmas in Indonesia.
Oriente is equity-funded by its founders and a group of family offices including members of the Berjaya Group, JG Summit Holdings, Inc., and Sinar Mas. To date, the company has raised over US$105 million in equity.
Quadria Capital announces US$595M second fund
Quadria Capital, an independent healthcare-focused private equity firm in Asia, has announced the closing of its latest fund, Quadria Capital Fund II, exceeding its US$400-million target.
Investors include leading global asset managers, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance, healthcare corporates, and development finance institutions across the US, Europe, and Asia.
As per a press note, the new fund has already invested in two companies — AKUMS Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, and the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, a gastric sciences hospital, in partnership with Mayo Clinic Network.
Business
Grab Ventures Velocity launches the third batch, adding BRI Ventures as a partner
Grab has kickstarted applications for the third batch of its startup scale-up programme Grab Ventures Velocity (GVV) with the theme of “Enabling Micro-Entrepreneurs” with two new tracks — value-add services for restaurant businesses and B2B logistics.
The first track aims to engage startups that provide digital solutions to small and medium restaurant owners to help grow their business, reduce costs or simplify operations. The second track is targeted at startups disrupting the logistics industry with innovations in warehousing and trucking space.
This time, Grab Ventures has partnered with BRI Ventures, the VC arm of the country’s largest state-owned bank Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), seeking to elevate the startup ecosystem in Indonesia with new programmes.
Grab Ventures and BRI Ventures have signed a strategic MoU to create new joint initiatives to create unique growth opportunities for new-age Indonesian startups.
Following the success of Indonesian startups who were selected into GVV Batch 2 such as TaniHub and Qoala, GVV Batch 3 is inviting more such post-seed startups to develop through access to Grab’s ecosystem.
Also Read: Former Skype co-founder’s online lending startup Oriente raises US$105M funding
Grab Ventures Velocity (GVV) is the flagship scale-up programme for startups from Grab Ventures, which was established in 2018.
Registration for GVV Batch 3 is now open. All startups in Indonesia and Southeast Asia can apply. The chosen startups in batch three will earn mentorship from C-level experts in the industry as well as a pilot methodology to test startup offerings in the Grab platform and access to a broad Grab customer base.
gojek-owned on-demand service arm GET becomes one of the most used in Thailand
Thailand-based on-demand service that’s also owned by gojek, celebrated its first year anniversary on February 27.
GET was first launched in Bangkok last year with three main services: GET WIN for transportation service, GET FOOD for food delivery service, and GET DELIVERY for delivery service. GET also added digital payment service GET PAY in April 2019 in the beta version to support the in-app transaction.
GET claims that it managed to establish its position as one of the most used food delivery services in Bangkok just within its first year and recorded 10 million transactions in total.
GET is helmed by Pinya Nittayakasetwat, who explained that the name adjustment from gojek to GET is for memorable branding purposes. To date, GET FOOD by gojek has clocked more than 20,000 food merchants.
People
Regtech startup Tookitaki appoints Joe Friscia to lead US, APAC expansion
Tookitaki Holding Pte Ltd, a regtech company operating with compliance and reconciliation solutions, has appointed industry veteran Joe Friscia, who’s former President of NICE Actimize and BAE Systems, to the Company’s Advisory Board. Friscia is to bring 25 years’ experience in the financial crime and enterprise software space to help Tookitaki scale operations in the U.S. as well as advise on expansion into the Asia Pacific.
“As modern-day criminals thrive with the aid of new and advanced methods of conducting financial crimes, machine learning-based technology is rapidly gaining traction in helping future-proof and thwart these evolving threats. For this reason, I am both proud and excited to be part of the Tookitaki team and helping them make Sustainable Compliance a reality,” commented Joe Friscia.
Friscia will contribute to Tookitaki’s business and go-to-market strategy to help position Tookitaki as the regtech advisor helping banks detect sophisticated money laundering patterns with best-in-class enterprise software solutions.
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Picture Credit: Grab Velocity Ventures
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