Hard knocks lead Finmo to profits in 2024

It takes a lot to be a CFO.

Many companies looking for their financial maestros require somewhere between 10 to 20 years of experience, relevant degrees, and extensive industry knowledge. No surprises there, as in addition to sound leadership skills, those in this position need to have the accounting and data analysis chops as well.

Established in 2021, Finmo aims to make the jobs of CFOs easier through its Treasury Operating System, which has four services: money movement, payments, cash management, and foreign exchange management.

From left: Finmo founders Thomas Kang, David Hanna, and Richard Oh (front), Akhil NigamRajm, and Vimal Chopra (back) / Photo credit: Finmo

David Hanna, co-founder and CEO of Finmo, tells Tech in Asia that the Singapore-based startup achieved operational profitability over the last year since June 2024, attributing this to the collective experience of its founding members.

It now plans to invest more in its tech and market expansion.

Fueling this is the company’s US$18.5 million series A funding round, which was co-led by Quona Capital and PayPal Ventures, with participation from Citi Ventures.

Finmo intends to safeguard its profitable status even as it expands. Hanna says that the company aims to grow its user base – it currently has more than 200 clients – and revenue by 3x to 5x this year.

The company declined to share its financial figures with Tech in Asia.

Good lessons

Finmo was founded by Hanna, Akhil Nigam, Richard Oh, Thomas Kang, and Raj Vimal Chopra. Between them, the co-founders held senior positions at financial services firms like Citi, PayPal, and Rapyd.

The startup came about because its founders wanted to solve problems they had encountered in their previous posts.

For example, even reasonably large companies often resort to downloading data into Excel spreadsheets to make significant financial decisions, shares Hanna.

“For six and a half years, I saw the same problems over and over again,” he adds.

While there are other solutions that tackle these issues, Hanna says that they are more narrowly focused, covering only one or two issues faced by a company’s finance department. In contrast, Finmo wants to address multiple issues that finance teams face.

Where to spend

In “great shape”