Singapore B2B supply chain commerce firm raises $12m in series A round

Singapore-based B2B supply chain commerce startup Tinvio has raised US$12 million in its series A round led by AppWorks Ventures.

The round also saw participation from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s corporate VC arm MUFG Innovation Partners (MUIP) and existing investors Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Global Founders Capital, and Partech Partners. To date, the startup has raised US$18.5 million in total.

Tinvio plans to use the fresh capital to develop its financial technology.

Tinvio founder Ajay Gopal / Photo credit: Surge

Founded in 2019, Tinvio provides a chat-based interface to help small and medium-sized businesses place and receive orders. The platform also makes it easier for its users to exchange orders and invoices, among other things.

Tinvio CEO and founder Ajay Gopal told Tech in Asia that the company conducted a pilot for a payment service in January this year. Following its success, Tinvio began setting up a dedicated team to build the service.

“It’s only been live for a couple of months, but we’ve already gotten so much feedback from our users, and we’re sprinting to unlock new capabilities such as real-time payments and credit,” he said of the new payments offering.

The company is also betting on its partnership with MUIP to explore new services, such as transaction financing, credit card issuing, and other merchant banking solutions.

“This gives the company direct access to banking partnerships across the region, which we can leverage for regulatory and capital support as we go to market with our financial services. We’re building the user experience, the banks provide the underlying framework – this allows us to be multicountry from day one without needing any banking license,” Gopal said.

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Besides improving its fintech services, Tinvio will also invest in onboarding more suppliers as part of its efforts to scale the platform across new segments and markets.

In April last year, Tinvio raised US$5.6 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital India’s accelerator Surge, with participation from Global Founders Capital and Partech Partners.

To date, the startup said it has onboarded more than 5,000 businesses across Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and other Asian markets. Since it raised its seed round, Tinvio has recorded a 4x growth, the company said.

Correction (July 15, 2021 – 5:17 pm SGT): We had incorrectly mentioned Tinvio as a B2B social commerce firm. The headline and article have been updated.