In late 2024, we wrote a piece about why high-performing “outsider” companies — those that had built genuine, capital-light traction before ever touching institutional venture money — would drive the next chapter of Southeast Asia’s venture funding. The argument was that in a tighter funding environment, the companies best positioned to raise were not those born and raised in the ecosystem, but those that had already proven something real outside of it. We drew that thesis from three companies: Konvy, Surfin, and Dr Clear Aligners Group.

That piece was primarily about what we observed in companies before we invested. This one is about what happens after — and how watching two of our portfolio companies grow post-investment has continued to sharpen how we think about what to back next.

The two companies are Finmo, a Treasury and Payments platform for global businesses, and Se’Indonesia, a fast-growing Indonesian QSR brand built around authentic smoked beef and chicken. Both were named to the Forbes Asia 100 To Watch 2025 list and were recognized at this year’s Forbes Asia 100 To Watch Forum. More importantly, both have grown in ways that reinforce — and in some cases extend — the investment views we brought to them.

Finmo: The Compounding Value of Domain Depth

When we invested in Finmo, the thesis centred on a founding team that had spent careers operating inside the very problem they set out to solve. Financial technology veterans with decades of collective experience across corporate treasury, payments, and compliance — they had come to the market not as outsiders hypothesising about it, but as practitioners who had lived it. That depth of domain knowledge, we believed, would translate into a structural edge: on regulatory navigation, on product architecture, and on the enterprise trust that treasury management demands.

What we have watched since is that thesis play out, step by step. Finmo closed an oversubscribed $18.5M Series A co-led by Quona Capital and PayPal Ventures, with participation from Citi Ventures. Their licensing footprint has grown to six markets — Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, and the UK — each licence representing the kind of hard, unglamorous infrastructure work that most fintechs avoid but that underpins the platform’s moat. The product has continued to evolve: from their initial money movement offering, through FX and cashflow management, to the recent launch of MO AI, a conversational co-pilot for global finance teams that brings together real-time cash management, forecasting, compliance, and reporting in natural language. The company now describes itself as providing connected financial intelligence for the modern CFO — a framing that reflects genuine product evolution, not just a rebrand.

What this trajectory has reinforced for us is the compounding value of domain depth in founder teams. It is not just that experienced operators understand the problem better at the point of investment. It is that they continue to make better decisions as the business grows — knowing which licenses to pursue, which product bets to make, which enterprise relationships to prioritise. The edge does not depreciate. It compounds.

Se’Indonesia: The Durability of Operational Discipline

When we invested in Se’Indonesia, the thesis rested on a business that had earned its traction the hard way. Co-founders Rinaldi Dharma Utama and Christian Wilfandio had built a QSR brand around se’i — a traditional smoked meat from East Nusa Tenggara — into one of Indonesia’s fastest-growing food brands, without a venture war chest. The unit economics were strong, the brand had proven appeal well beyond Jakarta, and the centralized kitchen model gave us confidence that quality could be maintained as the business scaled.

What we have watched since is that operational discipline hold, at a scale that was not yet visible at the time of investment. By the end of 2025, Se’Indonesia had served over 50 million meals — across online delivery, dine-in, events, and community initiatives — through a network of 165 outlets spanning dozens of cities across Indonesia. The numbers matter less than what they represent: a business that has expanded its footprint significantly without losing the consistency that built its reputation in the first place.

What is equally telling is how Se’Indonesia describes its own growth. The focus, in their own words, is not on outlet count or revenue milestones, but on making quality beef accessible not only in major cities, but across regions with different needs and realities. The centralized kitchen and operational systems are framed as a means to that end — the infrastructure that allows the mission to scale without the mission getting diluted. Going into 2026, the company is looking to grow collaboratively, keeping their doors open for those who share the same vision.

This has reinforced something we had believed but not fully articulated at the time of the investment: that mission-driven operational discipline is itself a competitive advantage. Brands that know exactly what they are building, and build their operations around protecting that, tend to scale better than those chasing growth for its own sake.

What Watching Them Grow Has Taught Us

The outsider company piece was about what companies look like before investment. What Finmo and Se’Indonesia have shown us since we backed them is how the qualities that made them compelling at entry continue to shape outcomes post-investment — and what that means for how we evaluate the next set of companies.

Three things stand out.

Domain depth in founders is a compounding asset, not a static one. We have always valued founders who have earned their insight from years inside the problem. What Finmo has reinforced is that this depth does not just help at the point of investment — it continues to generate better decisions, faster, as the business grows into new markets, new products, and new enterprise relationships. We look carefully at how a founding team’s background will translate not just into early competitive advantage, but into sustained decision quality over time.

Operational discipline is the bridge between proof and scale. Se’Indonesia had already proven its model before we invested. What the post-investment period has shown is that the real test is whether a company can maintain the discipline that created that proof as it scales. The companies that do tend to share a common trait: they have built their operations around the mission, not around the growth targets. We look hard at whether operational infrastructure is genuinely mission-driven, or whether it is growth-driven with mission language layered on top.

The best founders define the market on their own terms. Both Finmo and Se’Indonesia have grown into framings that were not yet fully visible at the time of investment — connected financial intelligence for the modern CFO; quality beef as a matter of access and equity across Indonesia. These are not pivots. They are the natural articulation of what the founders always believed, now expressed at a scale that makes the ambition legible. We pay attention to whether a founding team has the depth of conviction to define their own market, rather than fitting into a category that already exists.

A Series in Progress

The outsider company piece was a starting point, not a conclusion. What Finmo and Se’Indonesia have added is a post-investment dimension to that thesis — evidence that the qualities we look for before we invest are the same ones that drive growth after we do.

It is also worth noting that this pattern is not new to our portfolio. Aaron Tan, co-founder and CEO of Carro, was at the same Forbes Asia 100 To Watch forum — not as a honoree this time, but on the main stage, speaking on a panel about how to convert early-stage momentum into long-term competitive advantage. That framing is apt. Carro recorded its best-ever full-year EBITDA of S$43 million in FY2024, followed by record revenues of S$1.2 billion in FY2025 on the back of a $60M round led by Cool Japan Fund, and is now preparing for a US IPO at a valuation north of $3 billion. The qualities that made Carro compelling at the point of investment — a founder with deep conviction about a large, underserved market, building with operational discipline rather than just capital — are the same qualities that have driven its trajectory since. Where Finmo and Se’Indonesia are still converting early momentum, Carro is already demonstrating what the long-term competitive advantage looks like. The time horizon is different, but the signal is the same.

What Finmo and Se’Indonesia are showing us now, Carro showed us over a longer arc. We are watching for the same thing, at each stage of the journey.

If you are building something that fits this description — domain depth meeting operational discipline meeting a genuine market — we would like to hear from you. Pitch to Insignia.

Related reading

High-Performing “Outsider” Companies will Drive the Next Chapter of Southeast Asia’s Venture Funding — read here

The Trillion Dollar Opportunity of Building a World-Class Global Treasury Operating System: Why We Back Finmo — read here

5 Reasons We Are Backing the Bold in Beef Rice Bowl F&B Se’Indonesia — read here