Singapore, 1 April 2021 — Endowus.com , one of Singapore’s leading MAS-licensed investment platforms and the first and only digital advisor for Central Provident Fund (CPF), Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) and cash investing, announced today that it has completed a SGD 23 million ($17 million) first close of its series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, a leading global venture capital firm, with participation from SoftBank Ventures Asia. 

This is the first external fundraise for Endowus, which to date has been 100% owned and funded by its employees, including technology and finance-industry veterans from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Blackstone, Bytedance, Grab, Dropbox, Alibaba, and Lazada.

Endowus has seen stellar growth since its end-2019 launch. Despite the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Endowus has experienced 20 times growth in clients investing on the platform, with 8 times growth in assets under advice. Endowus is on track to hit its target of SGD 1 billion ($742.49 million) in assets under advice by Q2 2021 in Singapore alone. This is in just over 18 months after its full-service launch, making it the fastest-growing digital wealth platform in Singapore.

The Singaporean wealth platform offers Retail, Accredited, and Institutional investors a seamless digital experience to invest cash, CPF and SRS savings. With expert personalised advice, along with access to best-in-class funds at a lower cost with no sales fees and 100% trailer fee rebates, Endowus is at the forefront of the fast-changing wealth management industry, aggressively launching new solutions in its mission to help everyone invest smarter. 

Endowus recently launched the industry’s first multi-asset, multi-manager globally diversified Sustainable ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) investment portfolios for retail investors in Singapore, pioneering yet another solution to help investors do good, and do better in their investments. In the past year, it has also launched Cash Smart — an innovative cash management solution, and Fund Smart — which allows investors to build custom portfolios from a selection of institutional share-class and trailer-fee free funds curated by the Endowus Investment Office. 

Endowus’ pioneering of new solutions for the Singapore wealth market saw the wealth platform recognised as the ‘Singapore Rising Star' and 'Singapore Fintech Innovation in Asset Management’ at the Asia Asset Management’s Best of the Best Awards in February this year.

Gregory Van, Founding Partner & Chief Executive Officer of Endowus, said: “We are humbled but excited to have the confidence of Lightspeed and SoftBank Ventures Asia with their new investment in Endowus in support of our mission to help Singaporeans invest better across all their wealth - Cash, CPF & SRS. 

“The success we’ve seen in Singapore this past year proves that our solutions are meeting the needs of investors, with one in two clients acquired on our platform investing across multiple wealth streams. And with the same rigour, we will expand our offerings to other key markets in the region, starting with Hong Kong.”

Harsha Kumar, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners said, “Endowus’ mission to solve saving and investing for individual investors and meet global retirement challenges aligned with our understanding of what was needed in the market. 

“Their innovative business model, ambition and commitment to a higher standard of fiduciary duty speaks of a team that is at the cutting edge of the FinTech space. We are honoured to be leading the Series A round and to play an important role in accelerating Endowus’ future growth journey.”

Lightspeed is a leading global venture capital firm that manages over $10 billion across its offices in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, China, Europe, and Singapore. Notable portfolio companies include Grab, Dianping, Snapchat, Affirm, and Calm.

“We are excited to be supporting Endowus in the next stage of their exciting growth. As the first-and-only CPF digital advisor, Endowus is clearly the leader in digital wealth, has a differentiated business model, and the strongest team in the WealthTech space in the region. Softbank Ventures Asia is looking forward to being an important partner of the future success of Endowus, in Singapore and the rest of Asia.” said Cindy Jin, Partner of SoftBank Ventures Asia.

Founded in 2000, SoftBank Ventures Asia is the only global early-stage venture arm of SoftBank Group. It has investments in over 250 companies across 17 funds.

Samuel Rhee, Founding Partner & Chairman of Endowus, said: “Endowus will use the additional resources and the support of our VC partners to go deeper and broader in the Asia market where we want to continue helping all investors achieve their investment goals. We began “Day 1” with the mission to solve the greatest challenges and problems of wealth and finance such as retirement adequacy. As the first-and-only CPF digital advisor and now the fastest growing digital wealth platform in Singapore, Endowus is achieving that goal and the new fundraising will help us bring that mission of the company and vision of the future into reality for all Singapore-based investors.”