Latvia-based FinTech startup Jeff, which currently only has operations in Vietnam, has raised $1.5m in a seed round extension led by J12 Ventures.
Other participants included iSeed Ventures and Toy Ventures, and returning investors EstBAN, Startup Wise Guys and other angels. The funding brings Jeff’s total raised to about $2.5m. It closed a $1m seed round back in March.
The startup aims to use the fresh capital to increase its team from 15 to over 40 members. With a bigger team, the company will focus on market expansion, growth in business-to-business sales, and form new partnerships. The company plans to enter the Indonesian market by the end of 2021 and expects to start its operations in the Philippines in the third quarter of the year.
Jeff App wants to give consumers a ‘super app’ where they can compare many financial products and apply for them using the startup’s proprietary data-scoring models. For service providers, Jeff serves as a distribution channel, helping them find and retain customers.
By integrating data sources and leveraging the customers’ digital footprint, Jeff produces a unified credit score to help both lenders and borrowers.
While one of Jeff’s main features is loan comparison, the company has started expanding its offerings because most people only borrow money once in a while.
To create incentives to return to Jeff, instead of offloading the app once they secure a loan, Jeff is also offering coupons, like Shopee discounts and planning to launch telecom top-ups with cashback offers and a user referral functionality. It is also working on neobank and mobile wallet comparisons, payment functionalities, instalment financing, services for micro-to small-sized merchants and a data science model to increase conversions for providers.
Jeff started its operations in 2020 with Vietnam as its first market. The startup says it has served more than 300,000 customers in the country. The startup claims that since the end of January, its users have tripled to 700,000, who compared a total of four million products over the past six months.
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