Oriente has raised $50 million in its ongoing Series B funding round, led by Dr. Peter Lee, co-chairman of property developer Henderson Land, and cloud-based website development platform Wix.

This new capital will be used to fuel the firm's growth in existing markets and drive expansion into new markets such as Vietnam, as well as boost its technology infrastructure, product suite and big-data capabilities, the firm said in a statement.

Oriente provides customers with access to a range of financial services, including cash loans, digital credit, offline-to-online consumer finance, POS lending solutions, and working capital financing for SMEs and MSMEs. 

It has a customer base of over 5 million users and over 1,000 merchants though its Cashalo app in the Philippines and Finmas in Indonesia.

Strong Growth

«This investment, which comes during a time of significant global economic turmoil, puts us in a strong position as we look to step up our efforts in a highly competitive sector,» said Geoffrey Prentice, co-founder of Oriente.

In 2019, Oriente recorded 700 percent year-on-year growth in transactions, more than 4 million new users, and a 20-percent increase in sales volume for its merchant partners.  

The company, which raised $105 million in 2018 in one of the largest initial funding rounds by any start-up in Asia, is backed by Berjaya Group, JG Summit Holdings, and Sinar Mas. In March, it announced a $50 million debt funding facility from Silverhorn Group.