Wagepay secures $10 million in funding
Australian fintech start-up Wagepay has announced that it has secured a $10 Million funding facility from FC Capital, one of Australia’s largest alternative asset managers headquartered in Sydney. Funding from the facility has been earmarked to meet increasing disbursement needs and help the premium wage advance service provider with its next phase of growth. Wage advance service allow its users access to a portion of their wage in advance before their pay day.
Wagepay has been building on its strong 2022 financial year performance by practicing a more balanced approach of sustainable growth since the business’ inception 2 years ago. Completely bootstrapped by its founders, it has managed growth using its own operating revenue and delivered a net profit positive result in FY22 – a stark contrast to many early stage fintech companies across the industry.
The strong and sustained financial performance has drawn interest from FC Capital, among other institutional investors, who ultimately approved the $10 million facility after consideration and due diligence.
At the risk of been labelled as overly conservative, Tony Chan (pictured), the Founder and CEO of Wagepay, has consistently prioritised profitability overgrowth. This decision has proven to be working out well for the business amidst increasing pressure from raising interest rate and changing economic environment. “We wanted to make sure we can get back more than we pay out. It is basic business practice but has been neglected all too often in the name of rapid scaling”, Tony remarked.
The backbone of Wagepay is its advanced credit risk management and anti-fraud capabilities, powered by proprietary machine-learning derived risk models based on bank transaction data. The business has been the first to launch risk-tiered pricing back in 2021 to make its product more accessible and as a convenient alternative to traditional, high interest payday loans to working Australians. It has amassed more than 240,000 downloads across iOS and Android platforms in the first 12 months of app launch. It has also launched other free services including credit score tracker for its customer base.
