The company wants to make ATMs redundant by building a network of merchants…including possibly your neighbour

soCash, a startup that wants to help increase people’s options for where they can pull out cash, announced today it has raised an undisclosed Series A round from Vertex Ventures.

The money will be used to expand the team in order to scale-up operations.

The company works by partnering with banks and creating a network of cashpoints from offline merchants. Customers of the bank download the soCash app and when they need cash, it presents a map of the nearest points they can get cash.

These types of companies can range from cafes to grocery stores. One of the more interesting features is a ‘cash point’ can be a regular person, like your neighbour.

The financial management is handled within the app — which soCash pitches as a cost saving product for the banks.

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soCash recently announced a partnership with Standard Chartered to add an additional 200 cash points for its customers.

 

 

The Vertex investment

Vertex Ventures — a VC firm under the Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek — is famous for being the sole Series A investor in Grab.

It was attracted to soCash in part because it thinks the startup with help a cash-heavy society in Southeast Asia transition to cash.

“Despite the various initiatives to push towards a cashless society, the payment landscape in Asia remains dominated by cash. We believe that the transition will take years and soCash will play an important role in helping societies to transit towards the digital era,” said Joo Hock Chua, a Managing Partner at Vertex for  Asia & India in a statement.

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For Hari Sivan, the CEO and Founder of soCash, he was “honoured” to have Vertex on board as an investor, citing the firms ability to help its portfolio companies scale.

Other notable regional investments from Vertex include the luxury fashion company Reebonz and the parenting media company theAsianparent.

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