GoBear Adds A $17 Million Raise to Enlarge Its Consumer Financial Services for Markets in Asia

Singapore-based financial technology (FinTech) start-up GoBear has raised $17 million to expand its consumer financial services for Asian markets. Go Bear was founded in 2014 and is Asia’s leading financial supermarket whose main objective is to improve your financial wealth. The goal is to improve the financial health by making financial inclusion, financial security, and financial literacy achievable for everyone. GoBear’s total funding so far to $97 million and will be used to expand its consumer financial services, which is available in seven Asian markets including Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

GoBear’s founder and CEO Adrian Chng told TechCrunch that the company will focus on what it calls its “three growth pillars”: an online financial supermarket that evolved from the company’s financial products aggregator service; an online insurance brokerage; and its digital lending business, which it recently enlarged by acquiring consumer lending platform ASIAKREDIT. The financial technology company has also added three new executives and AsiaKredit Mike Singh as its new chief lending officer.

However, FinTech company now works with over 100 financial partners, including insurance providers and banks and its platform has been used over 55 million people for more than 2,000 personal financial products. The company serves consumers who do not have credit cards or other access to traditional credit-building tools. The credit card penetration rate is less than 10%, but more than 40% of the population uses a smartphone in markets like the Philippines where data points from smartphones are also used to assess creditworthiness.

Despite the COVID-19 epidemic, CEO Adrian Chng said, Gobear has been gross positive since the end of 2019. The Fintech company has continued to see demand for other insurance products and lending but the interest in travel insurance has declined. Over the last three months, the company has seen 50% year-over-year growth from its loan products and the online brokerage has grown its average order by 52%.

Moreover, in terms of competition, Adrian Chng told that not only is the market opportunity in Asia huge but the company also differentiates with its three core services, which are all interconnected and draw on the same data sources to score credit, TechCrunch confirmed. Lastly, the coronavirus pandemic will encourage more financial institutions to begin digitizing their products and looking for partners like GoBear to help them manage risk.