Aspire secures USD 100 mln in Series C round

The round saw participation from investors such as Paypal Ventures, and LGT Capital Partners as well as existing backers of the likes of Picus Capital and Mass Mutual Ventures.

Aspire’s offering and how the funding falls into place

Founded in 2018, Aspire provides businesses with a unified suite of financial services that include international payments, corporate cards, and payables and receivables management, made accessible through means of a single, user-friendly account. As detailed in the announcement, the company gained an extensive customer base in Southeast Asia, having tripled its annualised total payment volumes to USD 12 billion from more than 15,000 businesses throughout the region.

Andrea Baronchelli, Aspire Co-founder, and CEO stated that by partnering with these investors, the company aims to bring finance to the forefront of new-age businesses in Southeast Asia, looking to provide businesses, no matter the size, with the financial tools needed to realise their potential, be those for real-time financial data delivery, cross-border payments that are fast and transparent or spend management capabilities.

As detailed in the announcement, Aspire is planning to leverage the funds for the further improvement of its product offering and the expansion of its regional presence, while simultaneously growing its team to keep on innovating in the space.

Bejul Somaia, Partner at Lightspeed advised that as Aspire has emerged within the B2B fintech space in Southeast Asia with a complete end-to-end product for managing business finance, the enterprise is looking forward to supporting their vision for the financial services’ future in the region.

Aspire offering and recent developments

An all-in-one finance operating system for modern businesses Aspire has a customer base of more than 15,000 startups and SMBs across Southeast Asia. The company aims to enable them to save time and money by providing solutions ranging from multi-currency accounts and cards to expense management, payable management, and receivable management.

In July 2022, Aspire announced a collaboration with Know Your Customer looking to facilitate access to its financial products to Southeast Asia-based underserved SMEs. Following the partnership, Aspire was enabled to improve its ability to digitise and simplify its corporate onboarding for SMEs, entrepreneurs and corporate clients by leveraging Know Your Customer’s digital solutions and coverage of real-time registry connections.