Tryb, an Asian firm looking to buy and develop local fintech startups in order to create a "financial infrastructure platform for Asean", has raised US$30 million from the Makara Innovation Fund.
Tryb says that it will use the new funding to buy up growth stage fintech firms in areas such as SME lending, trade finance and micro-credit to aid it in efforts to enable the origination, syndication and distribution of credit across the region.
According to Deloitte, in Asean (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), less than 60% of SMEs have access to bank loans, and approximately half are unserved or underserved by financial institutions.
Veiverne Yuen, chief investment officer, tryb, says: "Tryb is developing a platform that will effectively bridge consumers of capital with global capital markets seeking attractive returns on capital.
"By investing in digitalisation at origin, our platform creates value by producing conditions that enable digital straight through processing. The result is to channel deep global capital pools into the region in a manner that is efficient, cost-effective and sustainable, with the aim of catalysing value for the benefit of Asean’s consumers and businesses.”