SPUN, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup building digital infrastructure for visa processing, has raised US$1.8 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Japan’s Genesia Ventures, with participation from Antler, Iterative, and Kopital Ventures.
The capital will support SPUN’s expansion across Southeast Asia amid rising demand for streamlined cross-border travel tech.
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SPUN operates as a backend platform that simplifies visa applications and approvals for governments, travel agencies, and businesses. In essence, it provides APIs and software tools that integrate with national immigration systems, automating document verification, eligibility checks, and application tracking. Users submit details through partner apps or websites, and SPUN’s system handles the rest — routing data securely to authorities and delivering real-time status updates.
This technology addresses longstanding friction in global mobility. Traditional visa processes rely on paper forms, embassy queues, and manual reviews, often take weeks, and are prone to errors or fraud. SPUN’s digital layer reduces processing times to days or hours, cuts administrative costs by up to 40 per cent, and enhances security through biometric matching and AI-driven risk assessment. Its importance lies in enabling scalable, contactless travel infrastructure, critical as international tourism rebounds post-pandemic and remote work fuels digital nomadism.
For Indonesia, the funding marks a milestone in its tech ecosystem. As Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Indonesia issues millions of visas annually to tourists, workers, and investors, but its system has faced bottlenecks –evident in 2024 delays during peak travel seasons. SPUN, founded in 2023 by Jakarta-based engineers, already powers parts of Indonesia’s e-visa portal.
The investment signals growing investor confidence in local startups tackling public sector inefficiencies. It could accelerate Indonesia’s digital transformation goals under its “Making Indonesia 4.0” roadmap, potentially boosting tourism revenue (which hit US$20 billion in 2025) by making entry smoother for 15 million annual visitors. Critics note risks, like data privacy concerns in a country with patchy cybersecurity regulations.
SPUN is now expanding into three Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. These markets were selected for their high visa volumes — Thailand alone processes over 30 million tourist visas yearly — and openness to tech partnerships.
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The company has partnered with immigration authorities in six countries so far. These include Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and one additional Southeast Asian nation not publicly named. Partnerships involve co-developing APIs tailored to each country’s regulations, such as Singapore’s strict biometrics standards or Malaysia’s labor migration focus.
Customers — ranging from travel platforms like Trip.com to corporate relocators and government agencies — gain tangible benefits. Processing times drop from seven to 14 days to under 48 hours in tested pilots. Costs fall via automation, eliminating physical handling fees. Fraud detection improves with machine learning that flags inconsistencies in 95 per cent of cases, per SPUN’s internal metrics. Applicants receive mobile notifications and one-click submissions, while governments get analytics dashboards for demand forecasting.
Competition is heating up. Regionally, Singapore-based Visa2Fly offers similar API integrations but focuses more on airline partnerships. In Southeast Asia, Travel Visa Pro competes with agent-facing tools.
Globally, players like iVisa (US-based) provide DIY application portals, while Atlys (India) emphasises consumer apps with embedded visa services. Larger incumbents such as VFS Global dominate outsourced processing with physical centres in over 150 countries, though they lag in full digitisation. SPUN differentiates through its government-first approach, embedding directly into official systems rather than third-party facades.
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Genesia Ventures, known for early bets on Southeast Asian fintechs like Gojek, sees SPUN as a fit for a US$50 billion regional travel tech market projected to grow 15 per cent annually through 2030. “Visa infrastructure is the hidden bottleneck in SEA’s mobility boom,” said a Genesia partner in a statement. SPUN plans to use the funds for engineering hires and compliance certifications.
The deal underscores Japan’s deepening ties with Indonesia’s startup scene, following investments in firms like Xendit. However, challenges remain: navigating diverse regulations across ASEAN and ensuring data sovereignty amid US-China tech tensions. As SPUN scales, it will test whether niche infrastructure plays can thrive amid giants.
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