Indonesian fintech startup SuperAtom raises $24m in Gobi Partners-led round

Indonesia-based fintech startup SuperAtom has raised US$24 million in a funding round led by Gobi Partners through the Meranti ASEAN Growth Fund. New York-listed Cheetah Mobile also participated.

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SuperAtom is incubated by and spun off from Cheetah Mobile, which was established in 2018 by Scarlett Xiao, the firm’s president of the board and co-founder. According to a statement, the fintech startup will leverage Cheetah Mobile’s global user traffic and data platform to develop a comprehensive risk management system.

In July last year, SuperAtom received approval from Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, Indonesia’s monetary authority, to operate in the country. The company then launched UangMe, a peer-to-peer consumer lending platform, in collaboration with local banks and financial institutions.

The lending platform has been downloaded nearly 5 million times, the company claims.

SuperAtom’s mission is to make financial services more accessible to the masses by taking low-cost funds from more mature markets such as Europe, Japan, Singapore, and the US and combining them with proven technology and business models from China. The company then localizes them for Southeast Asian markets such as Indonesia.

“Our mission is to provide hardworking people in this region with easy access to credit via a convenient platform. A market’s credit system reaches an inflection point once the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita reaches US$4,000,” said Xiao.

“Southeast Asia is now fast approaching that turning point, where fintech will start to take off. Countries like Indonesia will see its GDP per capita grow from US$3,800 to US$7,000 in the next 10 years, so the market potential is enormous.”

In Indonesia, the gap between the demand and supply of formal financial services is estimated at US$57 billion, according to the Asian Development Bank.

In 2017, the total amount of loan disbursements via fintech lending stood at US$274 million, rising to more than US$1 billion in 2018.

Beyond Indonesia, Xiao said that the Philippines is also a very attractive market for SuperAtom with its 100 million population and GDP growing at 6.2%.

“We are getting ready to enter this exciting market as we have just been awarded the financial license by the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission,” she said.