25 SEPTEMBER 2021, SINGAPORE – Asia’s leading Fintech Startup Moolahgo Pte Ltd announced that it had completed its Pre-Series Funding round at a total amount of S$4.5M.  As a vote of confidence, the latest tranche for the round was subscribed by its majority shareholder, the Lippo Group, in Q2 2021. 

The invested funds will be used to drive all areas of the business, including the expansion of Moolahgo’s presence into the retail digital payments segment. This will be driven by its eWallet product launched recently with aggressive roll out of new and enhanced features. The expansion into retail payments is backed by Moolahgo’s strong experience in dealing with complex B2B multi-currency cross-border payments services. Moolahgo eWallet users get to enjoy competitive rates and seamless payment service to more than 40 countries that is supported by its payout network of over 1,000 banks and agents. 

Since its inception in 2017, Moolahgo’s core business in cross-border multi-currency payments for Business-to-Business (B2B) segment has seen exponential growth, hitting a gross transaction value of S$0.5Bn in its 2021 financial year as announced in May this year. Another remarkable milestone is the achievement of positive cashflow by the end of previous financial year, where most tech startups still fall short in the initial years. In addition, Moolahgo is one of the first Fintech start-ups to receive 5 out of the 7 new Payment Services Act licenses from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to qualify as a Major Payment Institution in Q3-2020, well ahead of many of its peers in the market.  

The management of Moolahgo noted that by Year 2023, Asia’s payment industry may reach more than $1 trillion in revenue and there is no doubt that Covid-19 has brought the acceleration of cashless payment by 3 to 5 years. With governments in Asia investing in 5G infrastructure, it will be a strong catalyst for innovations in the fintech industry. Businesses and consumers are looking forward to 5G enabled lightning speed connection to reduce latency and transaction time.  

“With vaccination rates climbing and countries planning to transit to endemic phase, we are gearing up for the opening of borders for people to travel again. The pent-up demand for travel will send a wave of spending as a reward for pulling through the pandemic. More importantly, there will be an immense boost of activities and spending for countries to revive the economies again.” Mr. John Hakim, CEO and Founder of Moolahgo commented. 

“Besides having a strong positive outlook on the digital payments market in Asia, we have seen extraordinary performance from Moolahgo and an expansive business roadmap that showed immense potential for growth. We are pleased to support Moolahgo in this journey, bringing to bear our own success of making OVO into what is today Indonesia’s 2^nd most popular eWallet.” Mr James Lee, Board Member of Moolahgo.  

Gearing up for the Series-A funding round in early 2022, Moolahgo is targeting to raise funding of between USD 10 – 20 million. The Series-A funds will be used to further develop its cross-border infrastructure between Singapore and Indonesia to establish a one-of-a-kind payment capability between the 2 countries.  Indonesia is SEA’s largest economy and the World’s fourth most populous nation and over 50% are Millennials and younger. Moolahgo’s accessibility to the market would bode well for its long-term strategy.

Re-disseminated from The Asian Banker.