Validus Secures Funding for Its Series C-1 Fundraise

Southeast Asian SME financing platform Validus today announced that it has raised its Series C-1 funding round. Details of the fundraise was not disclosed.

New investors joining the round include NongHyup Financial Group, NorinChukin Bank, Aizawa Asset Management and Lotte F&L Singapore.

Validus’ early investors – Vertex SEA & India, Vertex Growth Fund, FMO and VinaCapital Ventures – had also participated in the round.

Since its establishment in 2015, Validus Group has disbursed over US$2 billion in loans across Southeast Asia and is said to be on track to achieve profitability by 2024.

Validus is operating under the Batumbu brand in Indonesia, which is its largest market, and is reportedly already profitable.

The firm had recently appointed Vineet Agarwal and acquired KlearCard’s business payments and expense management technology platform ahead of plans to establish a SME-focused neobank.

Validus had also managed to bag the first runner-up prize in the “Singapore Founder” category at this year’s SFF Global Fintech Awards 2022.

Nikhilesh Goel

Nikhilesh Goel, Co-founder and Group CEO at Validus said,

“As a group, we have proven that we have a clear path to profitability, and we’re on track to breakeven by 2024, with individual markets progressively achieving this milestone.

We’re heartened to have the support of our new and existing investors, and the new funds will be directed towards further product and services development, with a focus on enabling small businesses with faster and more convenient digital financing solutions.”

Vikas Nahata

Vikas Nahata, Co-founder and Executive Chairman at Validus said,

“Customers have given us good feedback on the simplicity of use and speed, and this is evidenced by the fact that we’re seeing extremely healthy growth in gross transaction value (GTV) within only a few weeks of our soft launch in August 2022.”