Hong Kong-headquartered fintech platform Oriente has raised USD 50 million in its ongoing Series B funding round, the company announced on Tuesday. The investment is led by Dr Peter Lee, co-chairman of Henderson Land, a property developer in Hong Kong. The cloud-based web development platform Wix.com also participated in this round, along with several existing investors.
The new capital arrived less than two months after the firm raised a USD 20 million debt funding facility from Silverhorn Group in early March.
Oriente will use the fresh funding to further boost its growth and push its expansion into new markets. In Vietnam, the company is currently beta-testing a new product called Finizi that offers businesses access to various types of credit products, Oriente’s spokesperson told KrASIA.
Moreover, Oriente will enhance its tech infrastructure, product suite, and big-data capabilities to unlock deeper business insights for partners. Technology plays a crucial role in Oriente’s product offerings. In the coming months, Oriente is committed to deploying its resources, infrastructure, and network to better serve its communities by helping businesses and their customers connect and participate in contributing to the economy, the company said.
Oriente saw a 700% year-on-year growth in 2019, served more than four million new users, and delivered more than 20% increase in sales volume for its merchant partners, according to the statement. As the investment comes during a global economic turmoil, it demonstrates Oriente’s potential to thrive in a highly competitive sector and overcome the recession.
Potential in Southeast Asia
“We are thrilled to have Dr Peter Lee and Wix.com join our incredible stable of existing investors on our journey. Southeast Asia’s vastly underserved merchant consumer ecosystem has tremendous economic potential, and we are excited to power a more capable financial services infrastructure that is purpose-built to unlock this,” said Geoffrey Prentice, co-founder of Oriente.
Oriente was established in 2017 by Geoffrey Prentice, who was part of Skype’s founding team, and former Lufax CTO and COO Hubert Tai, as well as Lawrence Chu, founder of BlackPine Private Equity. Oriente currently serves over 5 million users and more than 1,000 merchants across two markets. Through its products Cashalo in the Philippines and Finmas in Indonesia, Oriente intends to create financial value and opportunities for consumers, merchants, and the community.
The firm provides access to various financial services such as cash loans and digital credit, offline-to-online consumer finance, as well as working capital financing and POS-lending solutions for small and medium enterprises. Real-time data insights provided by Oriente empower merchant partners to make smarter business decisions, while increasing conversions and lowering risk. Oriente also aims to boost financial literacy in the community through its app and community outreach programs, according to the company.