GoBear said the new funds will accelerate its transformation into a fully fledged financial services platform built on alternative data.
Singapore-based GoBear has secured another $17 million in funding from long-term investors, Dutch venture capital firm Walvis Participaties and life insurance, pensions and asset management firm Aegon, bringing its total funding to $97 million, it announced in a statement on Wednesday.
GoBear, which operates a platform for insurance, banking and lending products, said it hopes to develop its offering across three growth pillars: an online financial supermarket, digital insurance brokerage, and digital lending.
Platform Expansion
The platform, which was founded in 2015, has more than 2,000 products from over 100 partners. It operates in seven markets in Southeast Asia and has registered more than 55 million site visitors.
«To truly improve financial health in Asia we must address the approximately 300 million people in our markets that remain underserved by existing banking and insurance services. GoBear’s transformation is a response to this by tackling important local barriers to financial literacy and inclusion,”» said CEO Adrian Chng.
According to the company, it has seen a 52 percent increase in the average order value at its digital insurance brokerage segment and has registered a 50 percent year-on-year revenue growth from loan products in the last three months. It also recently launched a white-label travel insurance products with Chubb and Allianz to better serve customer needs.
AsiaKredit Acquisition
Earlier this month, GoBear acquired Singapore-based digital lending platform AsiaKredit, which provides financial products to the underserved in the Philippines through the «pera247» mobile app. GoBear said it was looking to leverage AsiaKredit’s risk management and automation capabilities in data-driven underwriting and collections to establish «end-to-end lending.»
Personnel Changes
Following the departure of founders chief technology officer Ivonne Bojoh and chief commercial officer Marnix Zwart in November 2019, GoBear strengthened its senior management by adding Valeriy Gasratov as chief information technology officer and Jinnee Lim as chief strategy officer in March, as well as Mike Singh from AsiaKredit as chief lending officer in May.
