Singapore-based GoBear has raised US$17m from Walvis Participaties and Aegon.
The financial services platform for insurance, banking and lending products will use the money to help its move into being a fully-fledged financial services platform built on alternative data.
Walvis Participaties is a Dutch venture capital firm and Aegon one of the world’s leading providers of life insurance, pensions and asset management.
This is GoBear’s fifth fundraise.
Adrian Chng, CEO of GoBear, said: “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. GoBear’s transformation is a response to this by tackling important local barriers to financial literacy and inclusion.”
GoBear said it is well-positioned to continue its expansion of the financial services platform across three growth pillars: an online financial supermarket, digital insurance brokerage and digital lending.
Chng added: “Our latest fundraise is validation that our investors continue to see our potential for growth and that we’re on track to build a robust financial services platform that Asia really needs. Built on our strong foundation of alternative data, we can better assess and price risk, co-create better products, and ultimately improve financial inclusion.”
The company said in the last three months, its digital insurance brokerage segment saw a 52% increase in average order value. It also launched GoBear exclusives to better meet consumer needs: “Go Travel” a white-label travel insurance product with Chubb and “Travel Buddy” in partnership with Allianz.
GoBear also said that it had reinforced its digital lending business with the acquisition of AsiaKredit, a leading end-to-end digital consumer lender and has registered a 50% year-on-year revenue growth from loan products.
GoBear first launched in 2015 as a metasearch engine and has morphed into a financial services platform that offers consumers a one-stop platform to search and buy the product they need. It has served over 55 million users searching for more than 2,000 personal finance products.
