Helicap Fund – Sustain and Grow in Adversity

Introduction

As we head to the end of this tumultuous year, investors have found new asset classes and sectors to sustain and grow in adversity. Fixed Income, one of the core asset classes for investors, has struggled with shrinking returns as central banks raced to slash rates to zero as a combat mechanism. However, innovations in the traditional business of lending and borrowing, have created new opportunities for investors. One such area where there have been a copious amount of opportunities for investors, has been in the Fintech led SME lending space.

Filled with innovation, the Fintech industry has been one of the main beneficiaries of this pandemic, causing it to accelerate its already rapid growth. Fintech is now being used for many of the newest technological advancements; ranging from payment apps like Venmo and Alipay to stock-trading apps like Robinhood. Competition in the industry continues to rise, especially with new players emerging and attempting to break into the industry.

Success of Helicap

A fairly novel entrant in the industry is Helicap, a unique fintech firm specialising in the alternative lending space, primarily in Southeast Asia. Through the employment of credit analysis and proprietary scoring algorithms to expedite the analysis of millions of loan data points, Helicap’s technology enables them to target those underserved individuals and SMEs facing cash-flow problems, requiring access to credit facilities. Since its launch in 2018, Helicap has facilitated lending capital to over 200,000 underlying borrowers, of which over 90% remain active today. Furthermore, after successfully closing their series A funding round of US$10 million this year, Helicap’s flagship fund managed to deliver positive returns at the height of the pandemic crisis in March.

Notably this October, Helicap was recognized for their admirable efforts, being named in the ‘Inclusive Fintech 50 cohort of startups for 2020’ – a list which identifies the most promising startups driving inclusion and resilience for the 3 billion financially underserved population globally. The shortlisted 50 Fintech startups were handpicked by an independent panel of 35 experts from financial services, technology and venture capital firms. The month of October seemed to be a significant milestone for Helicap, as CEO, David Z Wang, was recognized in the 2020 Gen.T list – which acknowledges 400 leaders of tomorrow who are shaping Asia’s future. In addition, Helicap was shortlisted among ‘40 Innovative Solutions for the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) FinTech awards 2020’.

Investment Opportunity

As investors, navigating through periods of heightened volatility can be a rather challenging task. The thought of portfolio swings can be exciting, as well as excruciating to live through, depending on your risk appetite. Nevertheless, it is important for investors to remain calm and ensure that portfolios are diversified for protection, in order to withstand any potential panic in the markets. Thus including assets which are uncorrelated to the more traditional ones, like equities or fixed income, may potentially help ‘weather a storm’. A fund like Helicap may be able to serve this purpose as a portfolio diversifier.

Kristal.AI is proud to present you access to Helicap’s fund. We have on boarded the fund for our accredited investors who are looking at additional opportunities to diversify their portfolios. Feel free to schedule a call with our Relationship Manager for more information if you are interested in this investment opportunity!