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Fintech startups in Asia might see an influx of new cash in the coming years. Nova Founders Capital, an Asia-focused VC firm created by Rocket internet alumni Mads Faurholt-Jorgensen and Raphael Strautch, has announced it just received a US$50 million investment from Pacific Century Group, an investment company founded by Richard Li, son of Hong Kong’s Li Ka-Shing (aka“Asia’s richest man”).
A spokeswoman for Nova Founders Capital says that the firm will use the funding to tilt its focus towards fintech firms (that’s startup speak for “financial technology,” or firms focused on the finance industry). Not unlike Rocket Internet, it has committed not just to investing in companies, but also building new ones and possibly acquiring old ones.
“Fintech is the largest remaining internet frontier, presenting massive opportunities across Europe, Latin America, and Asia in particular,” says Faurholt-Jorgensen in an official statement. “We have so far identified twenty two billion dollar [sic] opportunities in financial services internet models worldwide. We have already begun work to build and invest in [the] first five of them. We firmly believe that the next tech superstars will come from the fintech industry.”
Even though Nova describes itself as a global-facing venture capital firm, its investment portfolio the far leans heavily towards Asia. Its portfolio includes the Compare Asia Group, which runs a batch of financial product comparison sites in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. It has also invested in Glasses Group, a glasses marketplace with operations across Southeast Asia, and Lion and Lion, a digital marketing agency that takes clients from Southeast Asia.
At the moment, it’s not quite clear what the implications of Pacific Century Groups’ investment in Nova are. It’s possible that Compare Asia Group might ramp up its staffing and marketing, or that Nova will start acting as a traditional VC firm that invests heavily in Asian fintech firms.
The Nova-Hong Kong connection also warrants attention. Touted as Asia’s financial hub, the city’s vibrant banking sector has led fintech to become a buzzword in the local community. Two of the city’s high-profile startups work in fintech – 8 Securities recently raised US$9 million from Velocity Capital and others, and in May DemystData raised US$5 million from a bevy of investors including Arbor Ventures, a Hong Kong-based VC firm that specializes in fintech. We’ve reached out to Nova to learn more about the deal and will update our readers when more information becomes available.
Editing by David Corbin, top image via Flickr user pamhule
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