Latvia-based Jeff App, a data-driven financial marketplace operator for emerging Asian markets, has raised $2 million to grow its presence in emerging economies, including India and other countries across Asia, as Presto Ventures informed Vestbee. The seed funding round was led by Presto Ventures, with participation from J12 and several business angels.
- Launched in 2020 by Toms Niparts and Reinis Tenis, Jeff App develops a platform to help address the gap between large, neglected customers and financial service providers.
- The startup’s platform provides underserved populations with competitive credit solutions by creating a client assessment infrastructure using automated data collection, aggregation, and analysis of user behavior, device metadata, TelCo, and IP-address patterns.
- After its launch in Vietnam, the startup expanded into other Southeast Asian markets, including the Philippines and Indonesia. It has grown to $10 million in revenue and became profitable in 2023. To date, Jeff App's marketplace has enabled more than 6 million people to apply for over 60 million financial products.
Details of the deal
- The fresh funding was led by Presto Ventures, a Prague-based venture capital firm that invests in tech startups across the CEE region, focusing on early-stage B2B software startups and online marketplaces. The firm’s portfolio consists of more than 60 startups, 75 investments, and 7 exits, including Inventoro, Bonferi, and Feedyou.
“Once the Jeff team launches in India, they’ll have a footprint in 5 of the 20 largest countries in terms of population around the world. In these countries, the segments of underbanked and financially underserved consumers are significant, and many similarities can be drawn among their systemic problems,” Partner at Presto Ventures, Roman Novacek, stated in a press release.
- The seed round also saw backing from the specialist data and AI fund J12, a Stockholm-based venture capital firm, alongside several angel investors, including emerging markets consumer finance veterans and executives Jean Pascal Duvieusart and Ladislav Bartonicek, and the founder of Printify, James Berdigans.
- The investment will enable Jeff App to grow its team, enter new markets like India and other emerging economies throughout Asia and beyond, and expand its suite of financial services and products, such as credit, on their marketplace.
“With our scale, we can now become key partners for top tier financial incumbents. And given the change of habits post-covid, historically offline-first emerging markets have accelerated their adoption of new digital preferences. Financially, we can now pursue new product categories – ones that offer much greater market size and a faster path to becoming a household name in emerging markets,” Co-founder and CEO at Jeff, Toms Niparts, stated in a statement.
