Our partnership with Surfin aligns with a pattern we’ve observed and increasingly backed: companies achieving bootstrapped scale across multiple, diverse markets. This approach, while demanding, often cultivates unique resilience and insight, a theme explored in our article on high-performing outsider companies. 

While we’ve partnered with numerous fintech startups, Surfin stands out. It’s uncommon to see a company navigate the complexities of multiple emerging markets, achieving significant scale without external funding initially. 

This foundational strategy of a multi-market approach has positioned Surfin less as a simple consumer lender and more as a sophisticated fintech infrastructure architect – a key factor in our decision to partner with them.

Part 1: The Resilience of Developing Multi-Market Credit Models

Surfin’s core philosophy revolves around expanding financial access by leveraging alternative data. The creation of deep, localized data lakes in each market serves as the bedrock for their credit scoring, particularly valuable where traditional transaction data is initially scarce. As user engagement grows, transaction data naturally emerges, further enriching and validating the scoring models within each specific market.

However, Surfin’s strategy extends beyond single-market optimization. By deliberately building distribution across multiple countries, guided by a seasoned leadership team, Surfin established a unique feedback loop. This multi-market presence isn’t just about reach; it’s fundamental to developing a truly robust and adaptable credit scoring system.

Managing this inherent risk is paramount. Here lies a crucial differentiator for Surfin: its multi-market footprint provides an unparalleled environment for stress-testing its global credit risk models. 

Insights gleaned from navigating a credit cycle downturn in one country can proactively inform risk mitigation strategies and model adjustments in others. This continuous, cross-market validation process allows Surfin to maintain industry-competitive default rates while strategically migrating towards higher-quality consumer segments.

While commonalities exist in user behavior, localization is critical. Each country’s model must adapt to unique behaviors, credit cycles, digital infrastructure nuances, and data availability. A global modeling system, therefore, necessitates rigorous testing across multiple markets, regions, and economic cycles to achieve genuine scalability and long-term sustainability. 

Surfin’s development of over 520,000 proprietary feature vectors, independently verified and integrated into its global risk scoring system tailored across three continents, is a testament to this intensive process.

This credit risk system is not static; it undergoes constant refinement, evolving with localized user behavior shifts and the expanding data spectrum accompanying digital economic growth in emerging markets.

Consequently, this multi-region, multi-country framework has become a significant competitive advantage and a formidable barrier to entry compared to single-market focused peers.

The inherent challenges of scaling – not merely launching – a multi-product, multi-market entity were central to Surfin’s decision to seek external funding and strategic partners. 

To date, Surfin has raised more than US$25 million in funding from investors including Woori Venture Partners, Washington University in St. Louis, Phillip Private Equity, and Insignia Ventures Partners.

Impact of the Multi-Market Approach on Product Retention and Financial Performance

Surfin’s growth is fueled by an ecosystem encompassing consumer financing, credit cards, wealth management, and fintech-as-a-service offerings, with scale enabled by multi-market credit infrastructure.

The impact of the multi-market scale has reflected in the company’s performance over the last seven years. Our due diligence confirmed strong user stickiness globally, with retention rates exceeding 80%*. For their consumer finance products, this typically translates to repeat users applying for new loans within 30 days of completing a previous one – a strong indicator of trust and product satisfaction, underpinned by reliable credit assessment.

The impact also extends to the company’s financial performance. Post-pandemic, the company achieved consistent revenue growth averaging around 40% YoY*, serving over 60 million registered users across its multi-continental footprint. Notably, 2023 saw revenues surpass US$150 million, yielding over US$15 million in profit*.

This financial performance underscores the strength of Surfin’s foundational business model and its successful penetration into major emerging markets. It also signals significant untapped potential addressable with external capital. We were particularly impressed by their ability to build and sustain this global presence – stress-testing models far beyond a single region like Southeast Asia – entirely bootstrapped, navigating the pandemic and other macroeconomic headwinds.

In Part 2, we explore another foundational aspect of Surfin’s growth strategy: AI. 

What Makes Surfin a Wave Maker at the Intersection of AI and Fintech (Part 2/2)

*figures mentioned in the article obtained from independent, third-party audit and due diligence conducted on the company

Surfin’s multi-market approach is discussed further in this conversation including Insignia Ventures Partners founding managing partner Yinglan Tan, Surfin CEO and founder Yanan Wu, and Nobel Laureate Michael Spence: