Fintech startup gets $2 mln seed funding from global investors

Vietnamese fintech startup Infina has raised $2 million in seed funding from five global venture capitalists.

The investors are Japan’s Saison Capital, Indonesia’s Venturra Discovery, Singapore’s 1982 Ventures, the U.S.’s 500 Startups, and Korea’s Nextrans.

Some Google and Netflix executives are also taking part in this round.

The startup has developed an investment app called Infina that enables users to make term deposits, invest in certificates of deposit and exchange traded funds. Most users are between the ages of 25 to 40 and looking for alternatives to investing in long-term asset classes like real estate.

The seed funding will be used to increase the number of users and diversify the investment portfolio, and hire experts to analyze customers’ risk preferences.

It plans to expand into other countries in future, but for the time being is focused on the Vietnamese market.

The company said that around 500,000 securities trading accounts were opened in the first five months of 2021, a 20 percent year-on-year increase, according to the Vietnam Securities Depository.

This along with Vietnam’s high Internet penetration rate, which was at around 70 percent as of January, and the fact that more than three-fourths of Internet users have used online financial services before, enable apps like Infina to gain traction.

Infina was launched in January 2021 by James Vuong, who used to be an engineer in the U.S.’s Silicon Valley before returning to Vietnam to serve as vice president of investment at Vietnam’s first venture capital fund IDG Ventures.

Vuong said many Internet users began using digital services, including for investments, with the interest rate cuts by the central bank to help businesses cope with Covid-19 prompting many investors to look for alternatives with higher returns than bank deposits.