Aspire closes US$100M Series C round
Singapore, 14 February 2023 - We are pleased to announce today that we have closed an oversubscribed Series C round. The round saw Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital SEA, Paypal Ventures, LGT Capital Partners and existing backers Picus Capital and Mass Mutual Ventures investing US$100M.
Aspire, founded in 2018, offers businesses a unified suite of financial services including international payments, corporate cards, payable and receivable management, accessible via a single, user-friendly account. We have quickly gained popularity in Southeast Asia, and recently tripled our annualized total payment volumes to US$12BL from over 15,000 businesses across the region.
“We are excited to partner with world-class investors to bring finance back to the driving seat of new age businesses in Southeast Asia,” said Andrea Baronchelli, Aspire Co-founder and CEO. “From delivering real-time financial data, to fast and transparent cross-border payments, to empowering business teams with world-class spend management capabilities to move fast and move right - we look forward to empowering every modern business, big or small, with the right financial tools to realize their full potential.”
Aspire plans to use the funding to enhance its product offering further and expand its regional presence, while increasing its team to continue to innovate in the space.
“Aspire has emerged as a leader in the B2B fintech space in Southeast Asia, with a complete end-to-end product for managing business finance, a strong track record of growth, and solid fundamentals,” said Bejul Somaia, Partner at Lightspeed. "We are excited to partner with this world-class team to support their vision for the future of financial services in the region”.
With the fresh round of funding, Aspire is well-positioned to continue its growth trajectory and cement its position as a leading B2B fintech in the rapidly-growing Southeast Asian economy. In 2023 the company plans to add more talent across the region and help further, build the SE-Asia tech ecosystem while maintaining a solid business model with best-in-class unit economics.
About Lightspeed
Lightspeed is a multi-stage investment firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends across all sectors. Since 2000, Lightspeed has backed entrepreneurs and helped build companies of tomorrow, including Snap, Hasura, OYO, Affirm, Razorpay, Grab, AppDynamics, Nutanix, Supabase, Byju’s, and Udaan. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage more than $18 Billion across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in India, Silicon Valley, Israel, China, Southeast Asia and Europe.
About Sequoia
Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies, from idea to IPO to beyond. Sequoia Capital India and Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia actively partner with founders from a wide range of companies, across categories, including BYJUs, CRED, Druva, Five Star Finance, Freshworks, GoTo, Groww, Kopi Kenangan, Mamaearth, Pine Labs, Polygon, Razorpay, Truecaller, Zomato and more. Sequoia spur founders to push the boundaries of what's possible. In partnering with Sequoia, startups benefit from over 50 years of tribal knowledge and lessons learned working with companies like Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, Dropbox, Google, LinkedIn and Stripe early on. From the beginning universities, endowments, and other non-profits have been the backbone of Sequoia's investor base which means founders' accomplishments make a meaningful difference. For more information on Sequoia's work in India and Southeast Asia visit sequoiacap.com/India and sequoiacap.com/sea.
About Aspire
We are an all-in-one finance operating system for new-age businesses. We serve over 15,000 startups and SMBs in Southeast Asia, helping them save time and money with multi-currency accounts and cards, expense management, payable management, and receivable management solutions - all in one account. Headquartered in Singapore, Aspire has over 400 employees across four countries and is backed by global top-tier VCs, including Sequoia, Lightspeed, and Y-Combinator.
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