Aspire raises $100m series C, says annual volume has tripled

Aspire co-founders Andrea Baronchelli (left) and Giovanni Casinelli / Photo credit: Aspire 

Aspire, a Singapore-based B2B fintech startup, has successfully raised US$100 million for its series C round.

The round was led by Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital SEA, and it saw participation from PayPal Ventures, Tencent, LGT Capital Partners, and existing backers.

Founded in 2018 out of Y Combinator’s winter cohort for that year, Aspire offers international payments, corporate cards, payables and receivables management, and other financial services. The company said that its annualized total payment volume has grown 3x to US$12 billion. It serves over 15,000 clients across Southeast Asia.

The startup’s flagship product, AspireAccount, offers cash flow management and B2B payment services to digital merchants.

Andrea Baronchelli, Aspire co-founder and CEO, said the company wants to “bring finance back to the driving seat of new age businesses in Southeast Asia.”

“From delivering real-time financial data, to fast and transparent cross-border payments, to empowering business teams with world-class spend management capabilities to move fast and move right – we look forward to empowering every modern business, big or small, with the right financial tools,” he said in a statement. 

With the new funding, Aspire plans to boost its financial product offering across Southeast Asia while maintaining “a solid business model with best-in-class unit economics,” the company noted. 

Prior to this round, the startup raised nearly US$200 million, according to Crunchbase data.