| | TOP STORIES YOU MISSED | Featured Stories | | | | | SFA AND RAZER FINTECH COLLABORATE TO HELP SINGAPORE’S FINTECH COMMUNITY Singapore Fintech Association (SFA), a nonprofit platform designed to facilitate collaboration between fintech stakeholders, and Razer Fintech, a Southeast Asian offline-to-online (O2O) digital payment network, have announced their collaboration to better help local fintech companies withstand the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic, per Finextra. The partnership aims to address key issues facing the industry, including business continuity, lack of funding, and brand awareness. The partnership will leverage Razer’s $50 million COVID-19 Support Fund and SFA’s collaborative platform to support the struggling industry. The announcement further proves Singapore’s commitment to fostering a thriving fintech ecosystem, with the partnership demonstrating helpful solutions beyond financial aid. As fintech funding contracts due to market uncertainty, governments could look to other policy initiatives beyond lending programs to better support their fintech sectors, such as branding campaigns, better access to talent, and international collaboration. |
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| | | | | DIGITS LAUNCHES EXPENSE ANALYSIS PRODUCT The US-based fintech announced the launch of its new expense monitoring dashboard and also closed a $22 million Series B funding round, which was led by venture capital firm GV, per TechCrunch. Digits’ debut product, Digits for Expenses, is a free machine learning-powered expense monitoring and analysis dashboard for small businesses. The tool will allow users to track expenses, much like personal finance management (PFM) fintechs such as Money Dashboard, but it also offers AI-enabled expenses insights, as well as cash flow visualizations and fraud detection. The startup was created to address many business owners’ frustration over devoting a disproportionate amount of their time to operational expenses, when it is more impactful for them to be strategizing and addressing technical issues. Digits intends for the dashboard to take care of the internal financial side of the business, so entrepreneurs can free up their time to drive growth. The expenses solution should generate significant interest as small businesses seek to drive cost efficiencies amid the economic crisis — we think to drive sustainable growth, Digits should prioritize launching its paid services. |
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| | | SINGAPOREAN INSURTECH CLOSES SERIES A+ FUNDING ROUND Igloo — rebranded from Axinan — has secured a further $8.2 million in funding, bring the total Series A+ round to $16 million, per TechCrunch. The extended round was led by venture capital firm InVent and included existing investors such as Openspace Ventures. Igloo works with traditional insurers, e-commerce firms, and travel companies to offer customers a range of digital insurance products covering accidents, travel, and electronics. It currently operates in six Southeast Asian markets and reports it has served 15 million customers. Igloo intends to use the fresh funds to deepen its presence in existing markets and enhance its product and business development teams. We think Igloo will continue to attract new customers and increase revenue as its focus on Southeast Asia and capitalizing on existing markets over expansion seems wise amid the economic slowdown. |
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