SPUN, an Indonesia-based travel ancillary startup building AI-enabled visa infrastructure, on Monday announced closing a seed funding round of $1.8 million led by Japan’s Genesia Ventures.
The round also saw participation from existing backers including Antler, Iterative, and Kopital Ventures; as well as new backers Spiral Ventures; and angel investor Kum Hong Siew, former managing director of Airbnb China.
SPUN is building AI-enabled infrastructure to standardise visa application workflows for both individual travellers and business customers, positioning visas as a core but underdeveloped layer of travel infrastructure in a region where requirements remain fragmented and frequently changing.
The company stated that it has processed thousands of inbound and outbound visa applications within its first year of operations, recording a 99% approval rate. All applications were processed for paying customers at prevailing market prices, rather than through subsidised or promotional models.
SPUN currently supports more than 300 visa types across over 90 countries, serving both consumers and business clients. Its B2B customer base includes more than 200 travel agents and resellers, while its services are also embedded within regional travel platforms such as Klook, Traveloka, Tiket, and Nusatrip.
“We see visas as a core travel ancillary that has been underserved for too long,” said Christa Sabathaly, CEO and co-founder of SPUN, in a statement. “[..] By building a single intelligence layer that works across both segments, we’re creating infrastructure that can scale regionally while delivering reliability for both individual travellers and travel partners.”
According to Sabathaly, SPUN’s focus on a single, high-friction vertical has allowed it to scale across markets without rebuilding country-specific systems, as cross-border travel and work rebound across Southeast Asia.
“Most people still think of visas as a manual service business. We see it as an infrastructure problem. Visa processes are increasingly digital, but the experience remains frustratingly complex,” said Takahiro Suzuki, General Partner at Genesia Ventures.
The fresh capital will be used to enter additional Southeast Asian markets, deepen automation capabilities, and strengthen integrations with travel platforms and B2B partners.
SPUN was founded in 2024 by Sabathaly and Dilla Anindita, former colleagues at LINE Indonesia. The founders said their experience navigating cross-border work and relocation highlighted the operational fragility of visa processes for both individuals and organisations.
As outbound travel from Indonesia recovers, navigating visa requirements continues to be a significant pain point. Each year, more than 20 million travellers take around 100,000 international flights from Indonesia, yet visa rules remain opaque and subject to frequent change.
Data from the Henley Passport Index show that Indonesian passport holders need visas for 106 out of 195 destinations, adding friction for individual travellers and raising costs and uncertainty for businesses managing cross-border movement. The same patchwork of rules affects both inbound and outbound travel across Southeast Asia, underscoring a wider infrastructure gap as international mobility and cross-border work pick up pace.
As international travel volumes recover and cross-border employment rises, SPUN aims to position itself as a regional system of record for visa applications, starting with this region.
