Tencent co-founder invests in Singaporean fintech startup

Koku, a Singapore-based startup that provides technology to cross-border remittance services, has raised US$2 million in pre-series A funding.

The sole participant in the round was Jason Zeng, co-founder of Tencent and head of angel investment firm Decent Capital, which he started after leaving the Shenzhen-based tech giant in 2007.

The startup is aiming to raise US$10 million in series A funding during H1 2019, it said in a statement.

Photo credit: john6863373 / 123RF.

Koku works with non-bank financial intermediaries, such as remittance services and liquidity providers. It claims its products allows these clients to easily “tech-up” and handle remittances and foreign currency exchange in a faster, more cost-efficient way.

Koku founder and CEO Calvin Goh admits that Koku isn’t the first company to offer these kinds of white-label solutions to remittance and liquidity providers. Where it differs is in the delivery, he claims.

“For customers, instead of having to deploy individual solutions, through our FX TechUp suite they can customise the solutions to cater to their business needs and drive their overall business growth plans,” he told Tech in Asia.

Competitors such as Thunes (formerly TransferTo) work with companies that already have technological infrastructure in place, while Koku “uniquely works with companies that have legacy, or little to no, technology,” he added.

“For many of our customers, integrating technology into their offerings is something they haven’t done before. They’re at a disadvantage when new players within the space make an entry.”

Goh cites the example of Grab, which announced its move into cross-border remittances late last year.

“This was never in their core business, but because they had the technology infrastructure, they’re able to [quickly] deploy,” he said.

“Koku isn’t an intermediary which works with other businesses to open up market share, we’re looking to grow the entire market by allowing companies to build out their offerings on top of our technology.”

The startup already has clients in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, and aims to use the pre-series A funds to expand to new markets including Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

A portion of the capital will also go toward product development and making hires to grow Koku’s team by 30 percent over the next six months. The startup is also targeting an increase in transaction volume from its current US$10 million per day to US$30 million over the same period.