Malaysian financial comparison startup iMoney raises $2 million

iMoney, a free online personal finance platform that helps users make comparisons between loans, credit cars, and other banking services, today announced it has raised $2 million in a series A funding round.

This funding is from a consortium of internationally renowned investors featuring Jungle Ventures, and other investors include 500 Startups, Rebright Partners, ECONA AG, Vogel Ventures, IMJ Fenox, Fenox Venture Capital (Full disclosure: Fenox VC is an investor in Tech in Asia. You can read our ethics statement here) and angel investor Lim Der Shing.

This Malaysian startup had also recently raised $500,000 in seed funding from Asia Venture Group (AVG) back in June. Since then, it has expanded beyond Malaysia to five other countries: Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Indonesia.

Lee Ching Wei, iMoney’s co-founder and group CEO plans to further strengthen the company’s number one market position in Malaysia and Southeast Asia with this new round of funding.

The company also appointed former CIMB, Citi and RBS senior banker Bruno Araujo as co-founder and chief revenue officer.

Lee gave the following statement about the funding:

iMoney is growing at double digits month-on-month, and while we’re already the largest financial comparison business in the region, we want to further accelerate this. This round of funding will allow us to continue to invest in user acquisition and to strengthen our operational teams on the ground, with the aim of bringing iMoney to the next level.

Lee added that the primary reason for iMoney’s success is due to the sheer volume of business iMoney already referns to financial institutions, which currently stands close to $70 million a month.

Araujo sees a lot of potential in the company he recently joined:

The financial services space is amongst the most exciting for tech investors in Asia and iMoney is well ahead of its peers when it comes to disrupting this industry. In Malaysia alone there are $33 billion of new home loans written every year and less than 0.1 percent of that is originated online. If you consider the other countries where iMoney has a leading presence, like Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand etc. then we’re talking about a $100 billion market.

Amit Anand, Jungle Ventures’s managing partner also commented on this investment: