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Singapore Fintech Startup Silot Raises Pre-Series A Funding from Key Investors

Silot announced its successful completion of pre-series A funding.

Silot has raised 2.87 million USD from Arbor Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures. This funding follows just nine months after its initial seed funding from ZhenFund, which marked the angle investor’s first investment in to Southeast Asia.

Arbor Ventures, widely regarded as Asia’s largest Fintech-focused venture fund, is backed by significant corporate strategic investors and networks. Eight Roads Ventures is the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International Limited.

Silot was hand-picked by the senior investment team of Eight Roads Ventures and is one of a few exceptional early-stage start-ups chosen for investment. This pre-Series A funding will mainly be deployed to fuel Silot’s expansion in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and other markets in the region.

Wei Hopeman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Arbor Ventures, said:

Wei Hopeman

“The Silot team has strong market knowledge, and the ability to engage and partner with well-known financial institutions through its end-to-end solutions and technological integration.

We believe Silot will play a leading role within the fast moving, dynamic development of mobile payments and new technology adoption in Southeast Asia, and potentially around the globe.”

“The wealth of network and industry know-how of Arbor Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures will give Silot the cutting edge for the technology upgrading and growth ahead”,

said Mr. Andy Li, founder and CEO of Silot. Prior to setting up Silot, Andy headed global expansion for top tier technology firms such as Baidu, Sohu, SEA Group and Kingsoft.

“With product and technology at the core, Silot embraces the cashless revolution by actively building a Fintech eco-system that serves the purpose of providing quality, diversified financial services to many institutions.”

Empowering Financial Institutions by connecting legacy silos with Big Data and AI

In the coming years, technology will play an even bigger role in financial services, with Financial Institutions (FI) increasingly investing in digital transformation. Financial technology (Fintech) has gained popularity, disrupting or replacing conventional banking mechanisms, which in turn has fuelled rapid growth and investment in Fintech.

Investment in Fintech in Singapore hit S$83.3 million in the second quarter of 2017, according to KPMG. To retain long-term competitiveness and to adapt to evolving customer needs and behaviors, it is imperative for FIs to upgrade their current banking infrastructures.

Silot provides a one-stop banking platform that empowers innovation and accelerates the growth of financial institutions through its proprietary, benchmark-setting Fintech products. Silot connects the silos of payments, on-boarding, operations and Anti-Fraud / Anti-Money Laundering (AF/AML).

In less than a year, the Silot team has extended the proprietary Silot Banking Platform to banks in Thailand and Malaysia and has attracted noteworthy partners such as Krungsri Bank and Visa, enabling efficient merchant transactions with proven security and swift business roll-out. The Silot Banking Platform (SBP) empowers financial institutions by providing three major components:

Silot Payment Engine – A unified payments engine supporting major payment methods (both legacy card payments & new mobile payments) in the market.
Silot Merchant Suite – A unified merchant onboarding and management platform applicable for merchants across all payment channels.
Silot Guardian – A unified Anti-Fraud and Anti-Money-Laundering system built to safeguard both on-boarding and transactional activities across all payment channels.

SBP is backed with the Silot Connect blockchain solution, which empowers banks, partners and Silot itself with secured data sharing and an inclusive financial eco-system that significantly lowers the operational cost in due diligence and KYC. Data collected by SBP can be further applied to identify financial loan opportunities and risks in small and medium-sized enterprises.