Tinder co-founder leads $2.1m round for Singaporean fintech Volopay

Singapore-based fintech startup Volopay announced it has raised US$2.1 million in a seed funding round led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen.

From left: Rajesh Raikwar and Rajith Shaji, co-founders of Volopay / Photo credit: Volopay

Other investors including Soma Capital, CP Ventures, Y Combinator, VentureSouq, Antler, and Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, the founders of Razorpay, also participated in the funding round.

Founded in 2019, Volopay combines expense approvals, corporate cards, bill payments, expense reimbursements, credit, cashback, and accounting automation in one single platform. It offers a 2% cashback on all software subscriptions, hosting, and international travel through its ‘corporate card for startups.’ It has also launched a credit facility for corporate cards, helping businesses meet their day-to-day expenses.

The company will use the new funds for hiring, product development, international expansion, and strategic partnerships.

“The whole process is broken. I would spend hours noting down each individual spend and then have to reconcile it with receipts,” said Volopay CEO Rajith Shaji of how the company came to develop its services. “The lack of visibility meant that startups were losing money due to unaccounted expenses.”

Volopay currently operates in Singapore and plans to expand across the Asia-Pacific region over the next three years. It will also launch operations in Australia by the end of this month.

The fintech company has a client base of over 100 companies, including Dathena, Medline, Sensorflow, and Beam.

“Helping companies with tools that make it easier to do business and get their expenses under control is a huge opportunity globally, especially in the post-Covid world,” said Y Combinator partner Gustaf Alstromer.

Volapay has capitalized on the ease of doing business in Singapore as the city-state is well positioned to be the regional headquarters for fintech companies. Singapore’s fintech investments have rebounded to US$278 million in the second quarter of 2020, a fourfold growth from US$68 million in Q1.