Centered on Southeast Asia, Ayoconnect’s APIs make it sooner for companies to launch new monetary companies, as an alternative of needing to construct their very own tech infrastructure. It is usually licensed by Indonesia’s central financial institution, enabling it to supply extra companies. The open finance startup introduced at this time it has closed a $13 million Sequence B extension spherical led by SIG Enterprise Capital, with participation from CE Innovation Capital and returning investor PayU, the funds and fintech enterprise of Prosus. This brings its complete raised to $43 million, together with the oversubscribed first tranche of its Sequence B, which was led by Tiger World and closed in January 2022.
Based in 2016, with a staff of about 250 individuals, Ayoconnect is at the moment working towards extra monetary inclusion for Indonesian customers and SMEs. It really works with regulators and incumbent banks, and was just lately awarded a Financial institution of Indonesia (BI) Cost Service Supplier Class 1 license. Ayoconnect says it’s the solely open finance participant in Indonesia to be licensed by the central financial institution.
Ayoconnect’s new funding will probably be used for management hiring, and on its Ayoconnect’s product and expertise, together with new options for funds, knowledge and banking and new APIs for account opening and card issuing.
The startup just lately launched automated recurring direct debit with seven of Indonesia’s largest banks (Mandiri, BRI, BNI, CIMB Niaga, Danamon, Financial institution Syariah Indonesia and Financial institution Neo Commerce). This permits Ayoconnect’s shoppers to make use of its direct debit API and get the power to make recurring debits from clients’ financial savings accounts at a number of banks.
Earlier than beginning Ayoconnect, founder and CEO Jakob Rost was a managing director at Lazada. After leaving Lazada, he spent a number of years residing in Indonesia, the place he noticed how the nation may benefit from extra digital monetary inclusion. For instance, it’s the fourth largest nation on the earth by inhabitants, however about half of persons are unbanked, he mentioned. It additionally has a sophisticated geography, leading to a weak monetary infrastructure, fragmentation and fewer standardization within the banking sector. Moreover, Rost added, consumer-facing companies in Indonesia don’t have the digital monetary infrastructure to handle their very own funds whereas serving clients.
Ayoconnect raised once more so quickly after the preliminary shut of its Sequence B as a result of it was rising quickly and in addition secured necessary strategic partnerships after receiving its BI license. Rost mentioned the brand new capital will strengthen Ayoconnect’s stability sheet and put together it for future development over the subsequent few years.
The platform now serves 200 API clients, together with massive banks, monetary establishments, tech unicorns and fintechs, and affords greater than 4,000 embedded finance merchandise. Its APIs are cowl two classes: open banking APIs and cost companies APIs, with the aim of constructing essentially the most full open finance stack in Southeast Asia.
Some examples of monetary companies that Ayoconnect’s shoppers have launched embody the aforementioned direct debit, embedded finance (it partnered with PT. Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), the state-owned operator of railways in Indonesia) to launch new ticketing and productiveness options within the KAI Entry cellular app, which permits customers to purchase cellphone credit, web knowledge subscriptions and electrical energy tokens). It additionally partnered with Financial institution Syariah, Indonesia’s largest Islamic financial institution, so as to add new digital and cellular capabilities with the aim of higher monetary inclusion and financial development amongst its clients.
Different Southeast Asian startups within the open finance house embody Brick, Finverse, Brankas and Finantier as opponents? A method that Ayoconnect differentiate is by being the one licensed open finance platform in Indonesia, which permits it to supply options that aren’t obtainable in the marketplace but.
“Whereas open banking and open finance are fairly well-established in Europe and the US, the trade continues to be very younger in Southeast Asia however is rising quickly. In Indonesia, tons of of tens of millions are embracing new digital companies whereas many extra are nonetheless with out entry to fundamental monetary companies like financial institution accounts,” mentioned Rost.
“As such, there may be big potential for open finance within the area and a ton of alternatives for the sector to develop additional. We’ve been actually excited to see the exercise within the house and to be taking part in a job in serving to to maneuver the ecosystem ahead.”
In an announcement, SIG Enterprise Capital’s Akshay Bajaj mentioned the Ayoconnect staff “have been operating excessive quantity APIs for years and are extremely effectively positioned to assist clients launch compelling and worthwhile use circumstances shortly and securely. Because of its increasing capabilities, Ayoconnect continues to expertise sturdy and rising demand from banks and API shoppers. We love their imaginative and prescient and imagine they’ve the potential to rework and improve the way forward for funds in Southeast Asia.”