Vircle, a Malaysian fintech, has secured seed funding in a round led by Gobi Partners and Kumpulan Modal Perdana (KMP) to expand its child-centric cashless payment platform. Vircle’s child-safe Visa prepaid card, which empowers parents to oversee their child’s expenses, aims to introduce millions of children in Southeast Asia to the cashless and digital banking world, promoting financial responsibility.
1 November 2023 – Vircle, the Malaysian fintech company specializing in child-centric cashless payment solutions, has raised seed funding in a round led by Gobi Partners and Kumpulan Modal Perdana (KMP), a government-owned technology-focused venture capital firm. Gobi Partners utilized Khazanah Nasional Bhd’s Gobi Dana Impak Ventures (GDIV) fund to facilitate its investment in Vircle.
Established in March 2021, Vircle introduced a unique payment card for children with parental controls via a mobile application, partnering with prominent schools across Malaysia. The company’s child-safe Visa prepaid card, the first of its kind in Malaysia, empowers parents to oversee and manage their child’s expenses, instilling financial responsibility and introducing kids to the cashless and digital banking world under careful guidance.
Vircle’s founder, Gokula Krishnan Subramaniam, aims to bank one million Malaysian children and a total of three million children across Southeast Asia in the next five years. The company’s mission focuses on creating a family-centric financial platform that provides children with a safe introduction to the cashless world, offering experiential learning opportunities.
KMP’s investment in Vircle is expected to enhance the company’s efforts to transform financial literacy for children through data analytics capabilities. The rapid growth in the number of users and transactions, doubling year-on-year over the last two years, demonstrates the potential of this partnership.
Gobi Partners’ co-founder and chairperson, Thomas Tsao, emphasizes the significance of Vircle in addressing the lack of access to banking services for approximately 160 million children in the region. Vircle is committed to fostering crucial money management skills, bridging an essential gap in both the educational system and households across Southeast Asia. – ref: NST
