24/10/2019 – The third-largest credit card issuer in Japan, Credit Saison, announces the launch of its capital fund Saison Capital. With a fund size of US$55M, the fund will be targeting early-stage funds in the Southeast Asian and India region.
The fund plans to invest in six to eight companies yearly, with an initial ticket size of up to US$1M.
Kosuke Mori, managing partner at Saison Capital, was quoted saying: “We are able to move fast, which can help Saison Capital to better cater to the needs of agile, early-stage startups.” as the reason of the fund’s focus on early-stage startups.
Mr. Mori further commented on the factors that would be detrimental in considering an investment, which includes the startup’s unit economics, scalability and the founder’s ambition in scaling up the company.
Chris Sirisereepaph, a partner at Saison Capital, commented that: “Saison Capital also has an independent decision-making process from Credit Saison,”
“Our unique value proposition is our strong institutional knowledge of the financing space, the investment team’s tech backgrounds and the speed of our conviction,” he added.
The fund will be providing technical expertise and financial capabilities to scale up the startups joining their portfolio.
In-line with Credit Saison’s financial expertise, the fund will be focusing on startups building accessible financial services to the underbanked. The company did express their interest in venturing into other non-fintech verticals as well.
Startups under Saison Capital’s portfolio will be joining Credit Saison’s ecosystem, which includes the likes of joint ventures with HDCM Development Bank in Vietnam, and the Singapore based ride-hailing unicorn Grab.
According to the statement, the fund has invested an Indonesian peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform, Koinworks.
While Credit Saison has previously invested in Grab, and cashback platform ShopBack which has a presence across the Asa Pacific region.
