Lanturn secures US$3M to provide online corporate services to organisations in Singapore
Lanturn, a one-stop online corporate services startup based in Singapore, announced today that it has raised US$3 million in a seed funding round from a slew of investors, including East Ventures and Hong Kong-based CoCoon Ignite Ventures.
Also participating in the round were individual investors, including Alex Turnbull; Saki Georgiadis, Managing Partner at RVP Equity; Meiyen Tan, Head of Oon & Bazul’s Restructuring and Insolvency Practice; Chris Kelly, Partner at White & Case in the Asia-Pacific; and Tiang Lim Foo, Venture Partner at Next Billion Ventures and Partner at SeedPlus.
The funds will be used to enhance Lanturn’s corporate service and accounting practices, continue to develop the Zave corporate services platform, and develop new service lines.
Started in 2018, Lanturn provides cloud corporate services for accounting and tax, corporate secretaries, incorporation, virtual CFOs, immigration and visa applications. Its clients include early-stage technology firms, SMEs and Singapore-based private equity firms, venture capital firms and venture debt funds.
“Nobody runs a tech firm, an SME or a fund because they want to do tax filings, accounting, visa applications, etc., and it’s often deeply frustrating how much time administrative tasks can take if you manage them in-house without the benefit of custom-built technology,” said Velisarios Kattoulas, CEO of Lanturn.
“We think it makes much better sense for our entrepreneurs and investors to focus on their core businesses. We also think that cloud technology can make corporate services, accounting and other services more efficient. That’s why we continue to invest in the Zave platform, the corporate services platform that we started building in 2017,” he added.
“Many startups and other small businesses have innovative business propositions, but they often find it challenging to juggle developing their products and solutions for the market while handling routine bookkeeping, compliance checks and so on,” commented Batara Eto, Managing Partner and Co-founder of East Ventures, which recently closed its eighth fund.
“We are pleased to support solutions that enable agility and adaptability among businesses, especially in the wake of the pandemic, and Lanturn provides that by leveraging technology to streamline corporate services and empower businesses to make more informed data-driven decisions,” Eto said.
Lanturn has a competitor in Singapore. Sleek, which was founded in 2017, had raised US$5 million in an extended seed round in December 2019. This round was led by Asia-focussed private investment firm MI8, Trafigura non-executive director Pierre Lorinet, and angel investor Fabio Blom.