Funding Societies

The founders' backgrounds provided a complementary foundation for the venture. Kelvin Teo had prior experience as a consulting professional at firms like McKinsey and KKR, where he witnessed the financing struggles of SMEs firsthand. Reynold Wijaya came from a family business in Indonesia, offering him direct insight into the operational and growth challenges faced by entrepreneurs. This shared perspective fueled their mission to support underserved businesses. The company launched first in Singapore and expanded into Indonesia in 2016 under the brand name Modalku, which means "My Capital". It subsequently entered Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, securing licenses in each country and becoming the only SME digital financing platform licensed in four Southeast Asian nations.

The firm's business model is two-sided, connecting SMEs in need of capital with a pool of individual and institutional investors seeking alternative fixed-income investments. For SMEs, Funding Societies offers a range of tailored, short-term financing products, including business term loans, invoice financing, revolving credit lines, and microloans, with amounts ranging from a few hundred dollars to S$2 million. The platform leverages technology and alternative data—such as transactional information and e-commerce data—for its proprietary credit assessment, enabling loan approvals in as little as two hours for certain products. For investors, the platform provides access to a diversified portfolio of SME debt with low investment minimums, starting from around S$20.

Revenue is generated through a combination of payment fees, lending and service fees, and interest income derived from both SMEs and funders. The company has diversified its offerings beyond lending, expanding into payments and expense management. A key move in this strategy was the 2022 acquisition of CardUp, a regional digital payments platform, which significantly increased its transaction processing volume. Funding Societies has also made strategic investments, such as its participation in Indonesia's Bank Index, to support its neobanking ambitions. The company has disbursed over US$4 billion in financing across more than 5 million loan transactions to approximately 100,000 SMEs.