The enigmatic unicorn behind BNPL firm Atome

Within just two years of its launch, Singa​​pore-based Atome, a buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider, catapulted from relative obscurity to become a common sight at physical and digital checkout counters like Sephora, Zara, and Shein. Atome’s success has come as Covid-19 popularized interest-free installment payments that purportedly help users take better control of their finances.

What’s less known about Atome is that its parent firm, Advance Intelligence Group, is the AI driver behind the platform’s fast loan approvals. Last month, the group joined the unicorn club after raising US$400 million from investors including SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Most recently, Advance Intelligence and Standard Chartered inked a partnership that will see the bank pour US$500 million into developing BNPL services and digital lending products over a decade.

While Atome may be the Singapore-headquartered group’s most prominent brand, the BNPL service is in fact just a small part of the company’s sprawling business. Collectively, Advance Intelligence has operations in everything from digital lending and risk management to merchant software services that span 12 markets across Asia, Greater China, and Latin America.

So, how exactly does Advance Intelligence power its various businesses through big data and AI? We break down some of the findings we’ve gathered from interviews and its financial statements.

1. It ran against the tide to go from B2B to B2C

Many well-known tech companies began as consumer-facing firms before expanding into high-margin enterprise businesses.

Take Grab, for instance: After launching as a ride-hailing company, it rolled out an e-wallet that customers could use to pay for rides and later added delivery services to the mix. As the company grew, it got into business-to-business verticals like marketing and advertising as well as lending.

Amazon also famously started as an online bookseller before becoming an “everything store.” But it took almost a decade for the US titan to venture into cloud computing, which is one of the pillars of its business today.

Advance Intelligence took a different route.

2. AI and big data drive its consumer plays

3. All’s not rosy: Atome Financial’s revenue halved last year

4. Atome: small for now, but growing fast

5. Advance Intelligence is expanding quickly on many fronts

6. Indonesia is its most important market by far

7. Advance Intelligence is eyeing BNPL 2.0 next