Jeff App, a Latvian data-driven financial marketplaces operator for the emerging world, has secured $2 million in late-seed financing. The round was led by European VC Presto Ventures, which invested in IP Fabric.
The VC firm saw participation from existing investors including the specialist data and AI fund J12, and a group of high-profile angel investors and industry veterans Jean Pascal Duvieusart and Ladislav Bartonicek, as well as the founder of Printify, James Berdigans.
How will it use the investment?
With the new capital, Jeff will continue its commercial expansion into India and other emerging markets throughout Asia and beyond, accelerate the recruitment of top tech talent, and build out the suite of financial services and products, such as credit, on their marketplace.
“At Presto, we’re strong advocates of and big believers in the use of AI, machine learning, and alternative data science – especially in markets where the traditional financial data landscape poses challenges. 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. The Jeff team has already proven their success in Vietnam was not a one-hit-wonder, and we’re excited to see their blueprint for entering new countries and product categories in action,” said Roman Novacek, Partner at Presto Ventures.
“Having worked in huge markets set for dynamic growth like Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, and others, I can say with absolute confidence that these large economies are on the verge of massive digitalization of financial services, creating very sizable opportunities for players like Jeff. Knowing and seeing how Toms and the team think and go about their business, I am bullish about what the company will achieve,” added Jean Pascal Duvieusart, Partner at BD Partners and an experienced veteran in the field of emerging markets financial services.
What challenge does it address?
While continuous efforts are being made towards financial inclusion globally, the gap between financial institutions and populations in emerging economies remains considerable.
According to the latest data, 40-60% of the population in large emerging economies like Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, and Philippines do not have an account with a financial institution, and only 10-20% of people have ever borrowed money from a financial institution. These factors, among others, lead to blank credit and financial history records for highlighted segments of people.
Jeff, a marketplace for financial inclusion in emerging markets, has built a unique solution to help bridge the gap between large underserved client segments and financial service providers.
Who is behind Jeff?
Jeff was co-founded by Toms Niparts, Reinis Tenis, and Sandris Artemjevs. Before co-founding this startup, Toms Niparts spent five years building fintech companies. He served as the CEO of a peer-to-peer investing marketplace operating across 30+ European markets. Reinis Tenis brought more than five years of experience from both commercial and investment banking roles, with focus on financial services and credit analysis. Sandris Artemjevs has 15 years of experience leading software engineering teams at international consumer finance companies.
What does the company do?
The Jeff marketplace gives traditionally underserved populations an increasingly competitive opportunity to access credit solutions from a growing number of financial services providers. The company achieves this by creating a client assessment infrastructure based on alternative data, which is enabled by automated collection, aggregation, and analysis of digital data footprints such as the user behaviour, device metadata, TelCo, as well as IP-address related patterns.
The data collection creates a comprehensive assurance structure for the financial service providers, enabling tailored matchmaking between product and consumer needs, as well as actionable insights to improve overall portfolio quality and decrease fraud risk.
At a time of accelerating digital adoption across the global financial ecosystems, Jeff clears obstacles that once kept financial services out of reach for many parts of the population – at the same time, it creates new market opportunities for banks and lenders, advancing the progress towards an inclusive economic development.
Achievements
Since its 2020 launch in Vietnam, Jeff has expanded into other Southeast Asian markets, including Philippines and Indonesia. It has grown to $10 million in revenue, and became profitable during 2023.
As of today, the marketplace has given more than 6 million people access to apply for over 60 million financial products.
“Last two years have been especially challenging for startups. Achieving profitability marks a significant milestone in our journey. In combination with new funding, it empowers us to get back on a high-growth trajectory. While achieving a market-leading position in our core markets, we’ve established a foundation for a geographic expansion playbook which allows for swift, yet profitable scaling into new countries. 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,” said Toms Niparts, co-founder and CEO at Jeff.
What do we think about Jeff?
Jeff App, leveraging $2 million in late-seed financing, is set to accelerate its expansion into India and other Asian markets, while enhancing its financial services suite.
With a proven success model from Vietnam, profitable operations, and a strategic expansion plan, Jeff is poised to become a key player in the digital financial services sector, empowering millions of underserved individuals and creating substantial market opportunities.
