Pan-Asian fintech platform WeLab has closed a Series D round of financing at $220 million to fuel its expansion in Southeast Asia and strengthen its market status in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong company’s largest funding to date, the Series D debt-equity round was backed by new and existing investors including Prudential Hong Kong, Fubon Bank (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC), TOM Group, Allianz X, and HSBC, WeLab announced on Thursday.
The new financing will fuel WeLab’s expansion in Southeast Asia while deepening its leadership in Hong Kong through a more diversified product ecosystem and accelerated customer acquisition, said the company.
The Series D round will also see WeLab create new business lines leveraging advanced technologies, drive continuous product and platform enhancements, and support strategic M&A opportunities.
As it targets to become a leading regional digital bank in Asia, this new capital raise will also support the initiatives towards WeLab’s recently announced artificial intelligence (AI) vision and its AI-first strategic partnership with Google, aimed at reimagining digital banking innovation across Asia.
The investment will drive its development of advanced AI agents, hyper-personalisation capabilities, and modernised marketing approaches, delivering more engaging customer experiences and efficient business outcomes.
Founded in early 2013 by Simon Loong, WeLab currently operates two digital banks and multiple online financial services in Hong Kong, mainland China, and Indonesia, with over 70 million individual users and more than 700 enterprise customers.
It offers mobile-based consumer financing solutions and digital banking services to retail individuals and technology solutions to enterprise customers. Its businesses include key brands such as online-only lending platform WeLend and digital bank WeLab Bank in Hong Kong, Bank Saqu in Indonesia, and various business lines in mainland China.
Its entry into Indonesia started in September 2022, when WeLab announced the completion of its acquisition of Indonesian commercial bank, PT Bank Jasa Jakarta (BJJ), together with Indonesian conglomerate PT Astra International Tbk, also known as Astra International. A year later, BJJ launched Bank Saqu to provide digital banking services to individuals and SMEs in Indonesia.
The Series D round came several years after WeLab announced in December 2019 the completion of its Series C round at $156 million from investors such as Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund and China Construction Bank International. That was followed by an Allianz X-led Series C extension round at $75 million in March 2021.
Its shareholder list also includes the International Finance Corporation, Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Hong Kong-listed tech and media company TOM Group, and Sequoia Capital.
