Singaporean fintech startup gets funding from Indonesian Lippo conglomerate

Photo credit: David D

It’s a good time to be a fintech startup. Especially if your tech promises to simplify the complex process of investing.

After closing a pre-series A round in November last year, Singaporean startup Call Levels today announced a strategic investment from Indonesia’s Lippo Group. The amount was not disclosed.

Lippo wanted to invest even after Call Level’s pre-A round was closed co-founder Cynthia Siantar tells Tech in Asia. The team decided to accept, given the interesting prospect of future collaboration with the conglomerate’s portfolio companies. The startup is still planning to raise a series A round two months down the line.

Both parties did not disclose which of Lippo’s entities made the investment. We know it’s not Venturra Capital, the startup venture fund Lippo Group has a stake in. That leaves room to speculate. After all, the Lippo conglomerate spans multiple industries including property, retail, healthcare, and education. Its international footprint includes business units in financial hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore and has a long and rocky history in the banking sector.

Key feature: instant alerts

Several fintech companies use software to help traders make better decisions. Stockbit from Indonesia and AlgoMerchant from Singapore fall into this category, to name a few. Call Levels is more focused. It zeroes in one key aspect of the investment strategy: staying up-to-date with movements in the financial markets.

The app is available for Android and iOS and even works with the Apple Watch. Traders can set custom notifications to keep track of prices for financial assets they’re interested in. They will be alerted instantly when those change or reach a desired level.

Call Levels mobile app for iOS, Android, and Apple Watch.

The app is free to use. Call Levels makes money through partnerships with financial institutions. The startup provides them with modified versions of its tech, Cynthia told Tech in Asia last November.

Cynthia at that time said the app received positive feedback from an international user base, which is why the company seeks to quickly expand into markets beyond Singapore. She did not share monthly active user figures but said users had set a total of 50,000 alerts since the app’s late-2014 launch.

Now, just a few months later, that figure has doubled to 100,000 alerts, according to the company. It prefers using this indicator instead of active users. “We work in the background and monitor price alerts for our users […] even if they don’t launch the app frequently. So [the number of alerts] created will be a better reflection of our usage,” Cynthia explains.

According to Call Levels, it has no direct competitors in the online world at this time.

“Our greatest competitor is the analog version that’s still existing in the financial markets or wealth management industry. To this day, relationship managers, sales people, or trade representatives still find themselves having to monitor price alerts for their clients and inform them when the levels are hit,” Cynthia says.