The Venture Codex

Participated · Equity · Apr 2025

Surfin Meta Digital Technologies is a Singapore-based financial technology platform led by CEO and founder Dr Yanan Wu. It provides digital financial services for the unbanked and underbanked in emerging markets, including consumer lending and credit cards, payments and remittances, wealth management, and B2B services. The company closed a funding round that brought its total funding to USD 26.5M. Investors in the round included Woori Venture Partners, Washington University in St. Louis, and Phillip Private Equity; an initial USD 12.5M investment was led by Insignia Ventures Partners in October 2024. Proceeds will be used to support development into new markets and to expand research & development initiatives. The firm plans to build a holistic suite of intelligent financial products for these markets. Surfin is a financial technology platform launched in 2017 and headquartered in Singapore that began with consumer lending and expanded into a suite of financial services. It now offers payments, remittance, credit card issuance, and wealth management across multiple markets. The company reports serving 60 million individuals across eight countries on three continents and processing about $2.7 billion in cumulative transactions. Products include Ayovest, a mutual fund trading platform launched in Indonesia in 2023, and Sufinc, a Visa-partnered credit card business in Mexico; in Indonesia Surfin holds licenses for P2P lending, mutual fund distribution, remittance, and payment gateway services. Surfin’s ecosystem is powered by a unified AI-driven credit scoring and risk-management engine to lend sustainably at scale and expand use cases. The company has been bootstrapped and self-financed since launch, has not taken third-party debt, and has over 2,500 people globally.

Participated · Series A · Nov 2023

Lendela operates a technology-driven personal loan comparison service that connects borrowers with banks and other lending institutions. The platform streamlines the loan application process by allowing users to receive and evaluate multiple loan offers in one place. Headquartered in Singapore, the company also maintains offices in Hong Kong, Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, underscoring its regional presence. Lendela intends to channel newly secured capital into further product development and to accelerate its expansion across the broader Asia-Pacific market. Although the company has not disclosed user or revenue figures, the repeat participation of its early investors signals continued confidence in its growth trajectory. By improving transparency and efficiency in consumer lending, Lendela positions itself as a key facilitator in the region’s personal finance ecosystem.

Participated · Series A · Dec 2022

Aigens provides online ordering and marketing tools for restaurants and foodservice brands across Asia. The company has served over 4,000 outlets, including Jollibee Group, Burger King, Starbucks, Shake Shack and Pizza Hut. Founded in 2012, Aigens now has about 120 employees across Asia Pacific. Following Ant Group’s investment, Aigens said Ant’s D-Store will be one of the offerings it provides to merchants, positioning it to tap into Ant’s Alipay+ payments ecosystem. The company plans to spend the fresh funding on market expansion, hiring and R&D. Early go-to-market focused on chains because they were easier to scale across diverse Southeast Asian markets than pursuing family-run businesses individually.

Participated · Series C · Apr 2019

Clozette is a Singapore-based new media company producing content for contemporary women focused on beauty, fashion, travel and wellness. It combines editorial authority with curated user-generated content to create storytelling for brands and consumers. The company operates with a team of over 90 employees across Southeast Asia and Japan and an expansive network of more than 3,500 creators with a collective social reach exceeding 600 million. Clozette has worked with more than 300 brands and media agencies, including Estée Lauder, Shiseido and Zalora. The company intends to accelerate product innovation and international expansion beginning with Thailand, and to build an interactive Cool Japan Ecosystem. It raised new funding in 2019 to support these plans. Clozette is a fashion social network and shopping portal that serves fashion-forward women who follow trendy and chic styles. The platform combines social networking features with shopping discovery and content aimed at a fashion-focused audience. The company is based in Singapore. Clozette announced a $3 million Series B financing. The Series B was led by Phillip Private Equity with participation from existing investors including Walden International and angel investors. The article did not disclose additional financial or operating metrics.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2018

igloohome builds smart access solutions led by CEO Anthony Chow, offering smart locks that let users grant remote access via a mobile app and operate offline without Internet connectivity. The company also sells iglooworks, a dedicated product line for real estate and infrastructure customers, managed via a dashboard that can sort, filter and export data and monitor large numbers of access points. igloohome plans to use new funding for research and development of products and software and to support new and existing distribution partners globally, with focus on Europe, the US and Asia Pacific. It currently has over 100 distribution partners and more than 100 integration partners, and works with property developers such as Sansiri, Mitsubishi and CapitaLand. igloohome is a partner of Airbnb, HomeAway and Booking.com, and sells solutions to both consumer and enterprise customers. The company is headquartered in Singapore. igloohome designs smart access hardware and software, including the Smart Mortise Lock, Smart Deadbolt, and Smart Keybox, that let users grant access via a mobile app. Its products operate offline and do not require an Internet connection. The company says its solutions are used in over 80 countries and it has partnerships with Airbnb and HomeAway. igloohome will use the new funding to develop smart access solutions for commercial projects, with a focus on the hospitality industry and both communal and private spaces. It also plans to accelerate hiring and invest in R&D to expand its consumer product range. The company is led by CEO and co-founder Anthony Chow. Igloohome offers a mobile app that connects to its IglooAccess and IglooSense hardware to let short-term-rental hosts manage virtual keys, monitor check-ins/check-outs, log usage and reduce electricity consumption. The company is led by CEO and co-founder Anthony Chow and is a product of the Dreamit Inside accelerator. It currently operates in Australia, Thailand and Singapore and has a partnership with Airbnb to provide hosts with keyless entry capabilities. Igloohome secured seed funding to accelerate commercialization of its product. The company plans to roll out in the United States in 2016. Financially, the company completed a $1.25M seed round to fund these efforts.