The fact that the majority of people cannot afford to access bank financial services has missed out on a lot of market potential. Not only that, young consumers are also tending to look for new convenient shopping solutions, helping them make purchases faster and reduce financial pressure. On the seller side, facing high competitive pressure in the retail and e-commerce industry, sellers are also looking for new solutions to attract customers.
To address this market need, Fundiin was born with the goal of providing good, high-quality financial products to groups of people who do not have access to financial services or have limited access. In October 2022, ThinkZone Ventures decided to invest and accompany Fundiin to realize the mission of removing financial burdens for consumers.
A few details about Fundiin's products
Fundiin is currently the leading startup providing solutions to buy now, pay later (also known as Buy Now, Pay Later - BNPL). This form helps reduce the spending burden on consumers, especially those who do not have access to banking spending solutions such as credit cards.
The payment support platform helps users buy products immediately, dividing the purchase into 3 small amounts, the first amount is paid immediately upon purchase, the remaining amount is paid in installments over 2 months, half each month, and is free (no interest) if the user pays on time. Customers do not need to download the application to their phone, and with just a CCCD card, phone number and a few simple steps, everyone can successfully use Fundiin's payment service in just 1 minute.
"Bringing financial freedom to consumers, buying now and paying later is just the first step. Next, Fundiin will continue to bring a number of more financial service apps, meeting the financial needs of the Vietnamese people. Currently, Fundiin is also planning to expand its operations to a number of countries in the region such as Indonesia and the Philippines, expected to deploy in the next Series B round." Mr. Nguyen Anh Cuong - Co-founder & CEO shared about Fundiin's vision.
ThinkZone Ventures especially appreciates the open market opportunity for this model
Buy Now Pay Later is already a large market with a global scale of up to 5.01 billion USD by 2021, and is expected to grow to a size of 40.1 billion USD by 2030 (according to Grand View Research). This model has been successfully proven in the world with many unicorn startups such as Afterpay, Klarna, Clearpay,... This form has begun to become a trend in Vietnam since 2020, attracting many startups from abroad to jump in with prominent names such as Reepay, Atome, Kaypay,...
Regarding market demand in Vietnam, with only 30% of the population having a bank account and only 4.7% of the population having a credit card, the Vietnamese market still has a very large space for Fundiin to pioneer in providing payment services to customer groups that do not have access to bank financial services.
Bringing the BNPL model to Vietnam since 2019, Fundiin has proven its business capabilities, demonstrated through 3 key factors for the success of the BNPL model. These are also three reasons that convinced ThinkZone Ventures to invest in Fundiin, even though the BNPL model is receiving a lot of skepticism around the world.
Ability to attract users
The philosophy of building products that promote a simple and convenient customer experience and not requiring users to install the Fundiin application has helped the startup grow users quickly and increase the rate of successful purchases.
Ability to attract sellers
Fundiin is currently leading the market in terms of the number of partners who are retailers and big brands both online and offline. Not only does it help Fundiin increase the customer base of large sellers, but it also creates trust and cooperation with many other sales chains. Fundiin has currently cooperated with more than 300 partners with more than 4,000 establishments. Recently, Fundiin has connected with big names such as The Gioi Di Dong, Dien May XANH, Unilever, Galaxy, Vuanem,... which has helped this platform increase the total users by more than 5 times, total GMV transactions by more than 7 times compared to the capital call round 1 year ago.
Ability to control bad debt
With the buy now pay later model, Fundiin must pay the seller and gradually collect money from the buyer after 2 months. Therefore, controlling bad debt is a key problem for BNPL companies to ensure long-term profits, determining the company's success or failure. Fundiin is currently applying the most advanced technologies such as AI, machine learning, and self-developed risk assessment algorithms to ensure a low bad debt ratio, keeping the model's Net Transaction Margin always positive.
Not only placing faith in the market and model, ThinkZone Ventures also places expectations on the capabilities of the founding team. Mr. Nguyen Anh Cuong - Co-founder & CEO of Fundiin, with investment experience at Vietnam Holding Asset Management, also founded Lendiz - a loan platform to buy motorbikes - with a lot of experience in startups and credit control. Mr. Vo Hoang Nam - Co-founder & CTO has experience developing products for tens of millions of users at large companies such as MoMo, VNG Corporation and TPBank. These accumulated experiences can help Fundiin have the capacity to grow even stronger in the future.
Accompanying Fundiin on its mission to remove financial burdens for consumers, ThinkZone Ventures will bring great resources in terms of partners and investment capital to support Fundiin's strong development in the future.