SINGAPORE (Feb 25): Validus Capital, a Singapore-based SME financing platform, has raised $20.5 million in its oversubscribed Series B funding round.
See: Temasek-backed Validus Capital raises over $120 mil in business funding
The Series B funding round was led by FMO, Netherlands’ public-private development bank. Other participating investors include Taiwan’s Cathay Financial Holdings, Singapore’s Openspace Ventures (previously NSI Ventures), Temasek investment arm Vertex Ventures, Thailand’s AddVentures by SCG and Vietnam’s VinaCapital Ventures.
Validus intends to invest the funding received in technology innovation, particularly around artificial intelligence and machine learning to help make business financing even more convenient and safe for SMEs. It will also fund their Southeast Asia expansion, starting with Indonesia in 2Q19.
Ajit Raikar, CEO and co-founder of Validus Capital, says, “Having a strong team, technology and data science capabilities has allowed us to partner with strategic global investors for our next growth stage. This reaffirms that we are well on track to deliver on our strong growth forecasts, and our ambition to become a digital ‘bank-like’ fintech for underserved SMEs is well supported with two leading sovereign funds investing into Validus.
