Funding Societies
“Can the largest SME lender in Southeast Asia become the region's SME financial OS by layering payments, cards, and embedded finance on top of its crowdfunded lending base?”
Founded2015
HQSingapore
FoundersKelvin Teo, Reynold Wijaya
Total raised$294M+ (Series C+ equity $144M + $150M debt, 2022)
Latest roundSeries C+, 2022
IndustryFintech / SMB Lending
The story
Founded 2015 as Southeast Asia's first SME crowdfunding platform (Modalku in Indonesia), connecting individual/institutional investors to SME borrowers. Following the 2022 US$294M raise, expanded beyond pure lending into payments and embedded finance — launching the Elevate virtual card (with MatchMove/Mastercard) and acquiring digital payments platform CardUp. The company is now positioning as a one-stop SME financial OS across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, layering payments, cards, and AP financing on top of its core lending engine.
Last 12 months
—
Product timeline
2015
Founded by Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya while at Harvard Business School; launched as first SME crowdfunding platform in Singapore.· launch
2020
Partnership with Razer Fintech to offer short-term financing to 20,000+ MSMEs under Razer Merchant Services.· partnership
2022
Raised US$294M Series C+ led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.· funding
2022
Launched Elevate virtual card for SMEs in Singapore, powered by MatchMove and Mastercard.· card
2022
Acquired CardUp, expanding into payments (card payments to non-card accepting recipients, online payments acceptance, invoice automation).· acquisition
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Funding Societies
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
3 layers disclosed in Funding Societies’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
CardUp (self-operated, acquired 2022)
Card issuing
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
9 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.