Singapore’s Fintech

E27.CO: Singapore-based real-time financial monitoring app Call Levels is raising a US$500,000 bridge round to spur growth, e27 has learned. The round, which is still open but partially committed, is expected to close in the coming weeks. Call Levels has previously raised US$140,000 in angel funding since its launch in October last year, led by angel investor and former JP Morgan executive Timothy Teo. Read the full article

TechInAsia: Singaporean bank DBS is bringing its DBS Paylah app to the Apple Watch, it announced today. DBS Paylah is a mobile payment app for iOS and Android phones. DBS account holders can link their accounts to the app in order to add funds to it. The funds are stored in the app’s mobile wallet and can be used for online payments, online purchases (with selected merchants), donations, and micro-payments between friends. Read the full article

Forbes: Game for Garena: Singapore’s Answer to Tencent and Alibaba? As it is, its payment business AirPay and now Shopee are its answers to Alibaba’s Alipay and Taobao. Annual revenues have catapulted from $17 million in 2011 to over $200 million last year. More than half comes from virtual goods, such as customized clothing and accessories a gamer can buy for his avatar. Looking ahead, Li expects steady 30% growth year-on-year. Read the full article

E27.CO: Singapore-based Chope Group, firm the eponymous Chope restaurant reservation service, has just announced receiving US$8 million in an investment round led by F&H Fund Management, along with NSI Ventures, the venture arm of US$1.8 billion Northstar Group. DSG Consumers Partners, Frontier Ventures, Singapore Press Holdings and other unnamed Chinese investors also participated. Singapore Press Holdings had invested US$1.3 million into Chope back in 2013. Prior to this investment, the company raised US$3.5 million since its launch in 2011, making this latest round its largest ever. Chope (which is Singaporean slang for ‘reserve’), so far has operations in five major Asian cities: Singapore, Bangkok, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It has more than doubled revenue and has sat over 20 million diners to date, claims the company. Read the full article

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