Samsung Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Korean multinational Samsung has invested $7 million in a Singapore-based HR startup Swingvy, marking its first investment in Southeast Asia. Swingvy announced this week that Aviva Ventures and Bass Investments also participated in the funding, in addition to its existing investors Walden International and Big Basin Capital, who financed $1.6 million in the previous round.
According to CEO and Co-founder Jin Choeh, Swingvy’s relationship with Samsung Venture is financial rather than strategic, however, there could be more opportunities for them to work together in the future.
The company has more than 5,000 clients across Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Choeh told TechCrunch in an interview, “Our target customers are SMEs not enterprises.”
“There are some local players, some legacy players, and some startup competitors, but generally we saw that there’s no market leader for HR tech in Southeast Asia.”
Swingvy’s service covers areas such as employee data, leave process, performance management, company calendar, HR reporting, payroll, and benefits. That said, the company also offers health insurance through partnerships with third-party firms, Choeh said. There will new features introduced into the services for expenses and payments along with monthly insurance and corporate cards.
This year, Swingvy plans to triple its customer base to 15,000. However, there are no plans in the pipeline to expand into new markets in 2019.