Singapore fintech firm banks $3.7m to help financial institutions go green

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is a decentralized database managed by a number of participants. It allows for digital data to be synchronized across multiple countries or institutions. In the financial industry, the technology can be used for accelerating settlement processes, smart contracts, and digitizing assets.

Whatever the case may be, institutions can choose to implement the technology if they aim to be more operationally efficient, leading to less waste overall.

“In Europe, about 6% of trades fail to settle, resulting in 35 billion euros (US$42.1 billion) in penalties annually,” said Ray Ferguson, chairman at fintech startup Hashstacs (Stacs) in a statement. “This is all wastage – wasted time, wasted money, wasted carbon footprints – that we at Stacs are committed to addressing through our DLT.”

Hashstacs chairman Ray Ferguson / Photo credit: Hashstacs

The Singapore-based company uses blockchain technology to help digitize assets, processes, and documents. Stacs’ platforms support the effective lifecycle management of securities and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) financing dimensions encompassing green and sustainability-linked bonds and loans.

The company said it raised S$5 million (US$3.76 million) in pre-series A funding led by US- and Singapore-based Wavemaker Partners. Tribe Accelerator and Stellar Partners also participated in the round, according to a statement. Stacs said it aims to raise an additional and larger series A round later this year, but has not disclosed any other information about it.

Stacs said it will use the new capital to accelerate its plans of expanding the ecosystem of global financial institutions on its infrastructure. Benjamin Soh, co-founder and managing director of Stacs, told Tech in Asia that the company aims to have a network of more than 30 institutions by the end of 2021.

The executive added that this expansion would allow Stacs to achieve a 2x growth in revenue this year. According to data from VentureCap Insights, Stacs posted US$343,600 in revenue for financial year ended March 2020 and an operating loss of US$634,900.

“Currently, we have announced partnerships with Swiss private bank EFG Bank, Malaysia’s national stock exchange Bursa Malaysia, Eastspring Investments, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, and Bluecell, and expect to have many more disclosed in the coming months,” said Soh.

According to him, Stacs has been resilient amid the Covid-19 pandemic, continuing its expansion efforts throughout 2020. “For example, employees have tripled from around 10 a year ago to 30 today, and we actually doubled revenues during lockdown,” the executive claimed.

Soh helped establish Stacs in 2019. He had also previously co-founded Broctagon Fintech Group, a company that provides liquidity, fintech, and blockchain solutions for exchanges and brokers. Stacs brought Ferguson, former CEO of Standard Chartered Singapore, onboard earlier this year to help the company develop its business strategy.

Last year, Stacs participated in the third batch of Tribe’s accelerator program alongside nine other startups in the healthtech, fintech, and cybersecurity spaces, among others. In March, it announced that it will offer sustainability-linked loans on its platform through a partnership with online financing firm Bluecell.

Currency converted from yuan to US dollar: US$1 = S$1.33.

Correction (April 20, 12:00 pm): This article was updated to show the correct date for Stac’s financial records.