The funding will drive forward Vesta’s APAC expansion plans
Portland, U.S.-based fraud protection and Ecommerce payment solutions company Vesta has bagged a strategic investment for an undisclosed amount from Singapore-based tech investor EDBI, the company announced in a statement today.
The investment will be utilized to drive Vesta’s expansions efforts across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, with its regional headquarters to be situated in Singapore, the statement said.
The investment comes on the heels of Vesta’s announcement in late May this year of the company’s growth capital funding round, where Vesta raised US$125 million from private equity firm Goldfinch Partners.
“We are excited to accelerate the execution of our strategy in APAC. The opportunity to partner with EDBI is exciting and this new investment really sets us up to go fast. Singapore is a natural spot from which to centralise our APAC operations,” CEO of Vesta, Ron Hynes said in the statement.
Commenting on the Singapore headquarters, Hynes added, “The combination of a dynamic business environment, first-class infrastructure and talent, and its central location for accessibility to the entire region, coupled with EDBI as our partner, made Singapore an easy choice.”
Vesta is a risk-assessment platform for payment fraud protection founded in 1995. The platform, based on data analytics and machine learning, enables enterprise clients to facilitate online transactions with a zero-fraud-liability guarantee.
Some of its customers include San Francisco-based fintech company Plaid, Canadian Ecommerce storefront platform Shopify, and U.S. payments platform VeriFone.
In an earlier press statement, Vesta announced in February this year that it was roping in Shabab Muhaddes as General Manager to lead its APAC operations.
Muhaddes was head of digital partnerships and ventures for APAC at Visa prior to joining Vesta, and also spent eight years at Mastercard in growth and product strategy roles.
“APAC is a region that has an immediate need for our firm’s solutions and it was a natural choice to make Singapore our regional headquarters. We are thrilled to partner with EDBI and be part of their portfolio family, and we are looking forward to working together to build and grow partnerships across the region,” Muhaddes said in the statement.
According to the Digital Consumer Insights 2018 report by Experian and IDC, one in five online shoppers in the Asia Pacific region had fallen victim to online fraud amidst an Ecommerce boom.
Southeast Asian countries in particular lose 1.6% of their online revenue to fraudulent activities, with orders in Indonesia 12 times more likely to be a fraud attempt than the global average.
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