Investing app Infina, which calls itself the “Robinhood of Vietnam,” has closed $6 million in seed funding in a round including Sequoia Capital India’s Surge.

Other investors in the round included Y Combinator, Saison Capital, Starling Ventures, Alpha JWC and AppWorks, Infina said in a press release Tuesday.

Infina said additional investors who previously backed Robinhood, Coinbase and similar offerings in other markets also participated in the round.

Low minimum investments

According to Crunchbase data, previous investors have included Earlsfield Capital, FEBE Ventures, Nextrans, Venturra Discovery, 500 Startups and 1982 Ventures.

The startup aims to make it easier to start investing, with users only needing $22 for an account, the release said.

«Vietnam has a young population of 97 million that is made up mostly of Millenials and Gen Z, many of whom are seeing increased incomes and have an appetite for investing,» Infina said. «Vietnam also registered more than 1.3 million new stock trading accounts in 2021, which was more than three times the number for 2020.»

Strong funded account growth

Infina said that surge drove its user numbers to a compound monthly growth rate of 64 percent for its funded accounts in 2021.

The app allows investors to chose from a range of asset classes, including fixed-income products, mutual funds and stocks. Expensive products are fractionalised to provide more diversity with low minimum amounts. Fractionalised products include real estate, according to Infina’s website.

Infina said it has also added its offerings to third-party superapps, such as e-commerce app Tiki, to reach a wider audience.

High unbanked population

Only around 15 million adults in Vietnam were considered fully banked, with 7 million considered underbanked – which means having a bank account, but lacking access to credit, insurance and investments – while 49 million were unbanked, according to the 2019 e-Conomy SEA report for 2019 from Google, Temasek and Bain & Co. The report was published pre-Covid. Vietnam’s total population is around 97 million.

Within Southeast Asia, assets under management via digital financial services climbed to $33 billion in 2021, from $10 billion in 2019, according to the 2021 e-Conomy SEA report. The report projected that figure would rise to $92 billion by 2025.