Poko, a Web3 payments startup based in Singapore and Vietnam, was born after social commerce firm Shoppa had to pivot its business model in March 2022.
“The social commerce model we piloted was too reliant on discounts to retain customers and had tech take a backseat,” Poko CEO and co-founder Geoffrey See told Tech in Asia in a recent interview. “We wanted to build something that had tech as its core.”
See, who was a former executive at fintech firm Trusting Social, said the team realized that “fiat to crypto on-ramping is tedious, fails often, and charges ridiculous fees.”
Poko aims to address these issues by enabling seamless transfers of assets from local payment rails to Web3 infrastructure. Its B2B2C model means that most of its main users are Web3 wallets, marketplaces, and decentralized apps and games, according to See.
The startup has just raised a US$4.5 million seed round from investors such as Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, and Global Founders Capital to fuel its growth.
Funding details
Funding amount: $4,500,000
Lead investors: Y Combinator, NAZCA, Global Founders Capital
Other investors: Goodwater Capital, Soma Capital, Amasia, CreditEase (宜信), Dentsu Ventures, Orange DAO, MS&AD Ventures, Plug and Play
Stage: Seed
Citing internal data, See said that the company’s platform can reduce NFT and crypto purchasing costs by up to 70%, boost transaction success rates by up to 5x, and increase paid user conversion by 79%.
Poko currently focuses on two products, an on-ramp aggregator and a direct checkout.
The company said it has over 11 million active wallets using its payment rails across markets in Latin America, India, and Southeast Asia.
Some of the projects in Poko’s pipeline include a virtual card offering on Visa and Mastercard rails as well as a savings product that would enable users to earn interest on their stablecoin holdings.
As for the current crypto downturn, See believe that this is still the best time to build in the space as “it forces us to make sure we can bring true utility to users.”
Poko is one of our portfolio startups in Plug and Play APAC. As an in-house venture capital, our goal is to fund the teams that are building the defensible businesses of the future. By leveraging our capital, our network of VCs, and our corporate partners, we give our portfolio companies an added advantage. Join our platform today!
Written by: Miguel Cordon
Click here to view the original source of the article.
