Indonesia-focused fintech firm raises $4.8m in Vertex-led round

Indonesia-focused fintech firm Fairbanc raised US$4.8 million in pre-series A funding led by Vertex Ventures, with participation from the Asian Development Bank, Accion Venture Lab, and Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group.

Fairbanc founder Mir Haque / Photo credit: Fairbanc

Fairbanc’s platform enables small and medium-sized enterprises to take out short-term credit to buy fast-moving consumer goods from large consumer brands. The firm has partnerships with 13 brands including Unilever, Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Danone.

In 2020, US-based Fairbanc raised an undisclosed amount from 500 Global and Indonesian billionaire Michael Sampoerna, the CEO of Sampoerna Strategic. Following that investment, the startup expanded to Indonesia.

The firm has onboarded over 350,000 merchants within the last year. Around 75,000 of these sellers are using Fairbanc’s buy now, pay later service, which enables them to purchase high-margin products.

Fairbanc is looking to scale quickly by leveraging the large merchant networks of partner consumer brands.

The new funding is earmarked for expansion in Indonesia and will help the firm explore new markets like Vietnam and the Philippines in partnership with Unilever.

According to a Unilever survey, 80% of Fairbanc’s beneficiaries are unbanked and around 70% are women merchants who were able to increase their sales by 35% on average.

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