Aspiring for Greatness

Fintech Upstart Aspire Secures Funding, Tenable Launches a Venture Arm, and 2022 Was the Second Best Year for Early Stage Unicorns.

Author

Adam from VC Brags
February 17, 2023

Welcome Shareholders,

In this daily edition of the Brags Newsletter, we'll cover the latest on a Fintech startup looking to revolutionize SME financing in Southeast Asia, a new venture fund being launched by a Cybersecurity company, and Unicorns defying the funding slowdown in 2022.

So sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy!

Startup of the Day

  • Fintech Startup Aspire, which wants to become the financial provider for SMEs in Asia, has raised $100 Million from an oversubscribed Series C Round led by Lightspeed and Sequoia SE.

Established in 2018, Aspire started out by providing working capital loans to small and medium-sized businesses but has since expanded its offerings to include additional services such as bank accounts for cross-border businesses, corporate cards, payable and receivable management, and automated invoice processing integrated with financial management software.

Other investors who backed the company in the current round include Paypal Ventures, Tencent Holdings, LGT Capital Partners, and investors from the company's previous funding rounds. Aspire has doubled its valuation with its current raise. The neobank last raised $158 million through its Series B, through a mix of debt and equity. Since its last funding round, Aspire has tripled its annualized payment volumes to $12 billion and now serves more than 15,000 businesses across Southeast Asia.

Who's Raising?

  • Columbia, Maryland-based cybersecurity firm Tenable has launched a venture capital arm with $25 million to support early-stage startups.

Tenable said it has been investing in startups since 2021 but didn't go public with the Fund until late January 2023. The firm is seeking out startups that can augment its cybersecurity solutions, to develop a more extensive network of companies to provide customers with additional options.

Areas of Investment will include cloud security, identity management, operational technology, and vulnerability management. The company said that typical investments from its Fund would range between $500,000 and 5 million. Tenable has previously invested in cybersecurity companies like Lineaje, Authomize, and Araali Networks.

Venture Today 👏

  • Despite a dip in startup valuations last year, some investors still managed to create unicorns at an accelerated pace during the earliest stages of fundraising, second only to the record-breaking numbers of 2021.

Of the over 300 unicorns that were created last year, over a quarter (77) of them were minted during an early stage round (Seed-Series B). Despite the vast number of startups establishing unicorn status in 2022, the figure was 28% lower than the record 107 early-stage unicorns established in 2021. All things considered, 2022 was a good year if 2021 data is excluded since the number of unicorns minted was more than double the next best year of 2018, when 38 unicorns were created.

As the funding environment continues to slow and venture investors pull back on terms, the number of startups joining the billion-dollar club may drop significantly going forward. In the second half of 2022, the number of new early-stage unicorns dropped to just 27 (compared to 50 in the first half of the year), while only four startups have achieved the status so far this year.

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