Singapore's homegrown startup SpherePay is now in the running to become Southeast Asia's biggest mobile payment platform after it secured over US$10m in its fundraising exercise. Just barely three months after its inception, the app is now in the top three payments platform in the region serving more than five million users and 10,000 merchants.
SpherePay on Tuesday announced the new milestone just a month after its latest round of funding and strategic partnership with bike sharing firm oBike in December 2017. Chief executive Joseph Chen is optimistic about the digital payment's future, promising to bring in more functionalities to benefit the users.
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"Since our inception last year, we have been making good progress to ensure that SpherePay will be one of the most highly utilised mobile payment apps in the region," says Chen in a statement to IBTimes Singapore. "Our completion of the recent fundraising coupled with the strategic partnership with oBike, are testament to the commitment and rapid development of SpherePay."
Chen adds that the company is "putting together new features that will bring even greater benefits" to all users". However, he did not disclose the name of new investors due to developments underway.
SpherePay will complete the integration with oBike by March, giving customers the option to use either of the company's app for payment. Forthcoming features include location-based merchant deals listing which will keep users in the know for great deals near them; another is the addition of payment capabilities such as booking of events, courses and classes, paying for bills such as telco and utility bills and booking of tickets such as cinema, flight or hotels in the later stage of developments.
In December, it started to implement the regional expansion in Thailand and Indonesia. By the second quarter, the company hopes to finish its expansion plans covering Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines.
