Indonesia-based fintech startup Akulaku today announced US$10 million in post-Series D debt funding from Lend East, a digital lending platform that connects global institutional capital with alternate lenders in Southeast Asia and India.
This funding followed a US$100 million Series D funding round that the startup announced in January 2019.
In a press statement, Akulaku said that it plans to use the funds to continue building and enhancing its lending portfolio in its key operating markets in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
“We are pleased to once again partner with Lend East to continue to enhance our lending portfolio. Akulaku has continued to see significant growth in the past year, and this additional funding will allow us to continue meeting the needs of the underbanked throughout Southeast Asia,” said Akulaku CEO William Li.
Founded in 2014, as one of the earliest consumer lending fintech startups in Indonesia, the startup aims to serve underbanked consumers in the markets it operates in with services that include digital banking, consumer credit, digital investment, and insurance brokerage.
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In its home country Indonesia, Akulaku operates a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) and consumer financing platform. It claimed to have disbursed over US$2.2 billion of credit in 2021 to over 10 million users.
Its wealth management, e-commerce, and digital banking platforms are said to have grown the company’s total revenue by 120 per cent to US$597 million.
Akulaku intended to seize the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 pandemic which saw changes in customer behaviours in various markets. According to Bain report, eight in ten consumers in Southeast Asia have turned to digital financial services to make purchases online.
However, the startup said that despite the growing digitally savvy middle class, half of the region’s population remain unbanked with no access to financial products. A further fifth (18 per cent) are underbanked and lack access to anything other than a bank account.
For Lend East, Akulaku was its first investment in the region back in 2019.
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Image Credit: Akulaku
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