
Small businesses are the backbone of Southeast Asia’s economy, but many struggle to secure working capital loans because they don’t have traditional credit records or collateral, say the founders of Funding Societies. The fintech, which claims to be the region’s largest SME digital financing platform, uses alternative forms of credit-scoring and has disbursed more than $2 billion in financing to MSMEs since it launched in 2015. Today, Funding Societies announced it has raised $144 million in an oversubscribed Series C+ equity round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from new investors like VNG Corporation, Rapyd Ventures, EDBI, Indies Capital, K3 Ventures and Ascend Vietnam.
It also received $ …