Singapore-headquartered fintech firm GoBear has raised USD 17 million in a new funding round from Dutch VC Walvis Participaties and Aegon N.V., the company announced on Wednesday. The company will use the fresh capital to speed up its transformation into a comprehensive financial service platform across three pillars—online financial supermarket, digital insurance brokerage, and digital lending.
Launched in 2015 as a metasearch engine, GoBear describes itself as a one-stop platform where users can find various financial products and tools for their needs. The firm claims to have served over 55 million users searching for more than 2,000 personal finance products. GoBear currently has a presence in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.
“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,” said GoBear CEO Adrian Chng in a statement. “GoBear’s transformation is a response to this by tackling important local barriers to financial literacy and inclusion.”
Despite the current pandemic, GoBear said its platform has been gross margin positive since the end of 2019. The company reported a 52% increase in average order value for its digital insurance brokerage and a 50% year-on-year revenue growth from loan products.
GoBear teamed up with Chubb and Allianz offering travel insurance products. Earlier this month, it acquired the Singaporean digital consumer lender Asia Kredit.