Southeast Asian fintech Aspire seals $100 million to fund growth
Aspire, a Singapore-based fintech offering corporate financial services, has raised USD 100 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round.
The round includes participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital SEA, Paypal Ventures, LGT Capital Partners and existing backers Picus Capital and MassMutual Ventures. Aspire will use the money to further improve its product offering, build out its team and expand its regional presence.
Founded in 2018, Aspire offers a suite of financial services aimed at businesses – including international payments, corporate cards and management of accounts payable and debit functions. In the five years since its inception, it has expanded rapidly throughout Southeast Asia, gathering more than 15,000 corporate customers and recently reaching US$12 billion in annual total payment volume. Prior to the Series C round, Aspire had already secured nearly $200 million from backers.
In particular, Aspire targets startups and smaller firms, which often struggle to access affordable financial services and are often overlooked by mainstream providers. According to research, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up more than 96% of all businesses in the region.
Aspire is to “empower businesses with the right tools”
Andrea Baronchelli, co-founder and CEO of Aspire, says: “We are excited to partner with world-class investors to bring finance back into the driver’s seat for new age businesses in Southeast Asia. From delivering real-time financial data and fast and transparent cross-border payments to empowering enterprise teams with world-class capacity management … we look forward to providing every modern business, large or small, with the right financial tools to realize their full potential.”
Bejul Somaia, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, adds: “Aspire has emerged as a leader in the B2B fintech space in Southeast Asia, with a complete end-to-end business finance management product, a strong growth track record and solid fundamentals. We are excited to partner with this world-class team to support their vision for the future of financial services in the region.”
Aspire currently employs around 400 people in four countries, but during 2023 they want to expand this team by taking on more talent. It wants to play an important role in building out Southeast Asia’s technology ecosystem while focusing on strong unit economics.
