Issuing nearly 100,000 cards and processing millions of transactions per month, Southeast Asian digital bank YUP has secured another $32 million in equity financing from a US institution, with total financing exceeding $100 million | Exclusive from 36Kr

Author: Ou Xue

Editor: Yuan Silai

Yingke learned that YUP, a Southeast Asian fintech company, recently completed its sixth - round financing of $32 million (approximately 230 million RMB). The investors in this round are several U.S. growth - stage funds, namely Moore Strategic Ventures, Spice Expeditions, and Platanus. The financing will mainly be used to support its user growth in the Indonesian market, preparations for new markets, and expansion of new businesses. YUP was founded in 2021 by Zhang Dong and his co - founder Zou Zhili in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

YUP CFO Gavin Guo told Yingke that the U.S. investment institutions leading this round have long been deeply involved in the global fintech field. Moore Strategic and Nick Huber (founder of Spice) were both early investors in Nubank. Based on long - term observation, they believe that Indonesia has greater potential than Brazil did in the past. After tracking the Indonesian market and YUP for two years, they highly recognized its model and team, thus leading to the investment.

In the current capital market environment, it is quite rare that YUP has been able to complete 1 to 2 rounds of financing every year since 2021.

As of now, YUP's cumulative financing has exceeded $100 million. Previous investors include XVC, SWC Global (Shunwei Capital), MindWorks Capital, the Sampoerna family in Indonesia, Sky9 Capital, BitRock Capital, Antao Capital and other institutions.

YUP was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Jakarta and Shanghai. The company's core products are "physical credit cards + virtual e - wallets", targeting the underserved market of the 80 million salaried workers in Indonesia who lack traditional banking services. YUP has a diverse team background, and most of its core members come from institutions such as Capital One, China Merchants Bank, Bank of Communications, Discover, and Ant Group.

In Southeast Asia, the penetration rate of credit cards is relatively low. Only a small number of high - net - worth individuals can access traditional banking services, while the general public often rely on high - interest micro - loans to meet their capital needs. However, with the rapid popularization of digital payment methods in Southeast Asia, a new group has emerged - they have stable social security payment records and belong to the regular salaried class, but still have difficulty obtaining basic credit services. This group is the core customer base that YUP targets.

According to the "Southeast Asia Digital Economy Report 2024" jointly released by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company, the total digital trade volume in the region is expected to reach $263 billion in 2024, achieving a 15% year - on - year growth. Meanwhile, the digital profitability of relevant enterprises in the region has jumped to $11 billion, 2.5 times that of 2022. The report further predicts that by 2030, the scale of the Southeast Asian digital economy is expected to exceed $2 trillion.

"In recent years, global capital has been increasingly focused on emerging markets such as Southeast Asia. Although the international financing environment has been cooling since 2022, Southeast Asia - especially Indonesia - is still regarded by many European and American funds as one of the most promising regions," Zhang Dong, the founder of YUP, told Yingke.

YUP borrowed the business model of the Brazilian digital bank Nubank and innovated based on the characteristics of mobile - payment - dominated Asia: users can either make offline purchases with physical credit cards through the VISA network or pay by scanning codes with e - wallets, achieving both "physical + virtual" coverage.

Zhang Dong defined YUP as a combination of "Alipay + physical credit card". Its APP also integrates functions such as mini - e - commerce, insurance purchase, and airline ticket and hotel booking, building a consumption ecosystem around payment. Currently, there are tens of thousands of transactions generated daily on the YUP platform, with millions of transactions per month.

YUP credit card usage scenarios offline (Image source: the company)

Risk - control ability is the lifeline of fintech companies. Yingke learned that YUP has built 11 neural network models covering the entire user lifecycle, conducting credit assessments based on over 7,500 characteristic variables and tens of millions of daily data entries. The team has cooperated with Indonesian social security, insurance, identity ID databases, and operators, and has built its own anti - fraud and behavior scoring system, with a transaction success rate of 99.9%.

"We are confident that our risk - control ability is far stronger than that of all local banks and tech companies in Southeast Asia," Zhang Dong emphasized. "This system is completely self - developed and does not rely on third - parties."

Localization is another major advantage of YUP. According to Zhang Dong, over 80% of the company's employees are local Indonesians, and all user - end operations are handled by the local team. Meanwhile, Zhang Dong, the founder, has been based in Indonesia since 2017. He sold his first startup to 360 Finance and served as the CEO of its Southeast Asian business. His in - depth local resources have made YUP the only tech company in Indonesia to sign a strategic cooperation agreement with VISA, and it has obtained licenses for electronic payment, credit, and fintech innovation.

In terms of customer - acquisition strategy, YUP has abandoned the traditional model of relying on paid advertising and achieved organic traffic growth through local brand building and channel cooperation. Zhang Dong said that 90% of the company's users come from organic traffic, and the customer - acquisition cost is far lower than the industry average.

Currently, YUP's business covers over 55 million merchants in Indonesia, making it one of the largest card - issuing institutions in the country. According to Zhang Dong, its monthly card - issuing volume is nearly 100,000, about 10 - 20 times that of the largest commercial bank in Indonesia. Since its establishment in 2021, YUP has maintained a strong growth momentum, with an average annual revenue growth rate of about 300%.

Regarding overseas expansion, YUP plans to enter markets such as Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand in the second half of 2026. Zhang Dong said: "The Southeast Asian Internet only started in 2015, and there is a lack of mature operation strategies and risk - control experience locally, which is exactly the strength of Chinese teams."