- MAS-licensed wealth platform and Singapore’s First CPF Digital Advisor Endowus.com has raised over S$23M in a Series A round from Lightspeed Venture Partners and SoftBank Ventures Asia
- Combined investment from the globally renowned VC firms values Endowus as one of the largest ever Series A funding for a Singapore-based FinTech company
- The investment will be used to rapidly scale up their Singapore business, where it is already the fastest-growing digital wealth platform, and expand into other key Asia wealth hubs, such as Hong Kong
Singapore, 5 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 last week that it has completed a $$23M first close of its Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, a leading global venture capital firm, with participation from SoftBank Ventures Asia.
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.
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 S$1 billion 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.
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.
Gregory Van, Founding Partner & Chief Executive Officer of Endowus, said that their solutions were successfully meeting the needs of investors in Singapore, with one in two clients on the platform investing across multiple wealth streams and they were expanding their offerings to other key markets in the region, starting with Hong Kong.
Harsha Kumar, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners said, “The 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.”
Lightspeed is a leading global venture capital firm that manages over US$10 billion across its offices in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, China, Europe, and Singapore. Notable portfolio companies include Grab, Dianping, Snapchat, Affirm, and Calm.
“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.”
Endowus is a MAS-licensed financial technology company and the first-and-only digital investment advisor for the Central Provident Fund (CPF), Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS), and cash. Endowus offers access to superior investment products, personalised advice, and lower costs on a seamless digital investment platform for all investors. Partnered with UOB Kay Hian, Singapore’s largest broker, client assets and positions are safely held in the client’s own name. Named Singapore Rising Star at Asia Asset Management’s Best of the Best Awards 2021, while also winning the award for Fintech Innovation in Asset Management.
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