Vietnamese fintech startup Trusting Social raises $65m Series C

Vietnam- and Singapore-based AI fintech startup Trusting Social has successfully raised $65 million in its Series C funding round led by the Sherpa Company, a subsidiary of Masan Group. BDA Partners was the exclusive financial advisor to Trusting Social on the transaction.

Trusting Social is an AI fintech company aspiring to democratize financial services through AI-based consumer insights and embedded finance. TS drives financial inclusion by providing credit insights covering a billion consumers to 170 financial institutions across Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines.

The strategic collaboration between Trusting Social and Masan intends to develop an AI-powered consumer tech platform. This will offer customized retail and financial products to 27 million families in Vietnam.

It will provide convenient access to personalized fintech solutions for consumers, combining Masan’s offline-to-online vision with Trusting Social’s ability to democratize finance. The partnership will also enable Masan to drive efficiencies in its core business by leveraging Trusting Social’s AI capabilities in retail store selection, demand & supply planning, and product assortment & development.

“I am proud that a Vietnamese platform has created an innovative credit scoring AI and ML platform that financial institutions across Asia are utilizing to serve their consumers better. Our partnership with Masan is exciting since we broaden our platform from credit access to a total consumer life solution. Masan and Trusting Social have the same belief that Vietnam can create transformation and disruption on par with global peers,” said Trusting Social’s founder and CEO Nguyen Nguyen.

Masan’s CEO, Danny Le said: “Walmart has invested heavily to develop an AI and ML platform and has leveraged it to become the leading offline and online daily, consumer life platform. The Trusting Social partnership provides Masan a similar cutting-edge AI and ML platform but tailored for 100 million Vietnamese consumers. Our job together now is to develop it from a pure credit scoring use case to a holistic Consumer engine.”

Jeff Acton, Partner and Head of Tech, BDA Partners, said: “We’re delighted to have advised Trusting Social on this exciting tie-up. This is a landmark transaction in the fintech sector in Asia, where BDA is seeing increasing deal activity, and building a track record.”