yufin
Merchant services platform enabling small businesses in Southeast Asia to access the digital economy.
Website: https://yufin.ph/
Cover Block
Public sources
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Company | yufin |
| Tagline | Merchant services platform enabling small businesses in Southeast Asia to access the digital economy. |
| Headquarters | Singapore [Crunchbase] |
| Founded | 2022 [Crunchbase] |
| Stage | Seed [Crunchbase] |
| Business model | B2B2C |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Technology | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | Southeast Asia |
| Growth profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding label | Pre-seed [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] |
| Total disclosed | Approximately $1,000,000 [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] |
Links
Public sources
- Website: https://yufin.ph/
- App Store: https://apps.apple.com/
Executive Summary
PUBLIC yufin is a Southeast Asia-focused merchant-services platform that equips small merchants with payments, inventory, ordering, digital distribution, and embedded finance tools, and it merits investor attention because it has reported scaling from roughly 2,500 merchant sign-ups in mid-2022 to more than 30,000 merchants in the Philippines by late 2023, with a Microsoft-backed scaling narrative emerging in 2025 [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [PR Newswire, October 2023] [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025]. The company appears to have been built around a practical last-mile distribution thesis rather than a single payment feature: it launched in the Philippines in 2022 and uses an in-person ambassador model to onboard neighborhood stores, then layers commerce and financial services onto that merchant base [yufin] [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [Archie Group, January 2023].
The product case is straightforward on paper. Merchants can use a phone as a point-of-sale device, manage transactions and inventory, access shopper and supply insights, and resell services such as insurance, streaming content, and transport tickets, while yufin positions itself as a distribution channel for FMCG and financial-services partners trying to reach smaller merchants and their end customers [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [Loyal VC] [yufin].
The team story is one of payments and merchant-distribution experience, although some of the strongest claims remain company-sourced. Public reporting identifies Kurt Weiss as founder and CEO of Miti Ventures and yufin, and Shubhrendu Khoche as a co-founder leading the Philippines business; yufin also says its founders previously built and sold mobile-financial-services businesses including C-SAM, later acquired by Mastercard [Archie Group, January 2023] [Daily Guardian, May 2025] [yufin].
Capital formation remains early. Public sources point to an approximately $1 million pre-seed round announced in June 2022, with named backers including Raja Rajamannar, Kathy Burdon, 77 Capital, Boleh Ventures, Zennon Kapron, Ramu Arivuvel, and Krishan Grover, while other public profiles also associate Loyal VC and Fintech Nation with the company [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [Crunchbase] [F6S]. The business model is best read as B2B2C: yufin aggregates merchant demand and then monetizes commerce, payments, and partner distribution through those storefront relationships [yufin] [Loyal VC] [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025].
What matters over the next 12 to 18 months is less the headline merchant count than evidence of quality within that base. Publicly cited growth in merchants and company-reported monthly gross transaction volume and revenue growth above 25% suggest momentum, but investors should watch for independent proof of engagement, repeat transaction behavior, partner depth, and whether a seed round closes on terms that reflect more than distribution reach alone [PR Newswire, October 2023] [Daily Guardian, May 2025] [LionhearTV, May 2025].
Lightly corroborated -- Relies on a mix of company materials and single-source public reporting, with partial corroboration on funding, leadership, and merchant-scale claims.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | B2B2C |
| Industry / Vertical | Fintech |
| Technology Type | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | Southeast Asia |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding | Pre-seed (total disclosed ~$1,000,000) |
How the Company Got Here
PUBLIC
The public record on yufin is still compact, but the core corporate outline is reasonably clear. The company presents itself as a Singapore-headquartered merchant services platform focused on Southeast Asia, and public profiles tie the business to Miti Ventures Asia Pte. Ltd. [yufin] [Crunchbase]. Its own materials say the product was built to help small merchants participate in the digital economy through commerce and financial-service distribution, with the Philippines emerging as the first visible operating market in public disclosures [yufin].
Chronology matters here because much of yufin's current narrative rests on early field execution rather than a long financing history. Public company materials say the platform launched in the Philippines in late 2022 [yufin], while funding coverage from June 2022 reported roughly $1 million in pre-seed financing and early merchant sign-ups in Mindanao before the broader expansion story took shape [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022]. Crunchbase lists the company as founded in 2022 [Crunchbase], which is directionally consistent with that operating timeline even if the exact incorporation date is not established in the cited public materials [Crunchbase] [yufin].
By 2023, the company was publicly framing itself around merchant growth in the Philippines, and by August 2025 it was also highlighting participation in INSEAD AI Venture Lab's Founders Sprint, a useful signal that management was still refining the platform and its operating playbook rather than declaring the model finished [yufin, August 2025]. The through-line across those milestones is straightforward: a Singapore-based parent, an early Philippines launch, and a merchant-acquisition motion that appears to have preceded any larger institutional round visible in public sources [yufin] [Crunchbase] [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022].
Lightly corroborated -- Corporate outline is supported by company website and Crunchbase, but milestone chronology relies partly on company materials.
Product and Technology
MIXED The product is best understood as a merchant operating layer for small neighborhood stores, with the phone as the primary device rather than a dedicated terminal. Public materials describe tools for payments, inventory, ordering, digital distribution, and embedded financial services, aimed at helping small merchants run day-to-day commerce and act as local access points for consumer and financial products [yufin] [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025]. Microsoft’s May 2025 profile adds more operational detail, stating that merchants can use their phones as point-of-sale devices, manage transactions and inventory, and obtain shopper and supply insights, while also accessing embedded working capital [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025].
The distribution layer appears to be as important as the software itself. According to Microsoft’s profile and the company’s own materials, merchants can resell services such as insurance, OTT content, transport tickets, bill payments, and other digital products through the app, which positions yufin as both a commerce tool and a last-mile distribution channel [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [Apple App Store] [yufin]. Loyal VC describes this as Distribution as a Service for small businesses, with the stated aim of helping FMCG and financial-services companies reach merchants and end customers more efficiently [Loyal VC]. That framing is consistent with early reporting that yufin used a field-sales "ambassador" model to onboard merchants in person, suggesting the company’s go-to-market relies on offline activation alongside the app experience [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [Archie Group, January 2023].
The technology claims are directionally credible, but most of the finer product detail remains company-described rather than independently verified. The clearest third-party confirmation is the Microsoft partnership article, which supports the phone-based POS workflow, inventory management, digital resale services, and embedded finance access, while other claims, such as broader commerce tooling and "AI advisory infrastructure," rest mainly on company-controlled channels [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [LinkedIn, accessed 2026]. On public evidence, the practical differentiation is less the software category itself and more the attempt to aggregate fragmented micro-merchants into a usable distribution network for payments, content, and financial services [yufin] [Loyal VC].
Company-stated, unverified -- This section relies materially on company-controlled product descriptions, with partial third-party corroboration from Microsoft Source Asia and early press coverage.
Where the Demand Sits
PUBLIC The market matters because yufin sits at the intersection of merchant digitization, embedded financial services, and last-mile distribution in Southeast Asia, three themes that have continued to attract operator and investor attention even when standalone fintech funding has become more selective [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022].
The public record here is narrower than it would be for a later-stage company. No named third-party TAM, SAM, or SOM study for yufin’s exact market appears in the cited materials, so the cleaner way to frame the opportunity is through adjacent, source-backed demand signals rather than forced sizing. On the company and partner descriptions, the relevant market is not only SMB payments software, but a broader merchant-services layer that bundles payments, inventory, ordering, digital distribution, and embedded finance for neighborhood stores that still operate with limited software penetration [yufin] [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025].
What stands out in the source set is the distribution problem yufin is trying to solve. DigitalCFO Asia described a field-sales "ambassador" model used to onboard merchants in person in the Philippines, while Archie Group framed the local corner merchant as a potential financial hub rather than simply a retail endpoint [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [Archie Group, January 2023]. That matters because adoption in this segment is often constrained less by product awareness than by trust, training, and the need to fit software into existing cash-flow habits. A merchant-services platform that combines software with physical onboarding is addressing a real friction point, although the economics of that motion are not disclosed in the public material [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022].
The adjacent markets are also meaningful. Microsoft Source Asia said merchants can use phones as point-of-sale devices, manage inventory, obtain shopper and supply insights, resell services such as insurance, OTT content, and transport tickets, and access embedded working capital [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025]. Read conservatively, that places yufin across several substitutes and extensions: SMB POS software, informal wholesale ordering, bill payment and digital-content resale, agent-assisted financial distribution, and small-ticket working-capital access. Loyal VC's description of "Distribution as a Service" points in the same direction, with the merchant acting as a local node for commerce and financial products rather than only a buyer of software [Loyal VC].
The macro and regulatory backdrop is implied rather than fully spelled out in the sources, but the direction is still clear. yufin's own materials emphasize embedded financial services and commerce tools for small merchants, and the 2025 Microsoft partnership was presented as support for scaling digital tools for Philippine small businesses [yufin] [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025]. In practical terms, the category benefits when merchants are pushed toward digitized records, non-cash transactions, and more formalized supplier relationships. It also inherits the constraints of fintech and distribution regulation, since products that touch payments, credit, insurance, or ticketing typically require partner structures and compliance discipline that pure SaaS vendors do not [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [PR Newswire, October 2023].
| Cited market signal | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| More than 2,500 small merchants signed up in the Philippines by June 2022 [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] | Early merchant demand for a field-enabled digitization product in neighborhood retail |
| Platform crossed 30,000 small businesses in the Philippines by October 2023 [PR Newswire, October 2023] [IBS Intelligence, October 2023] | The addressable merchant base is large enough to support expansion beyond pilot scale |
| More than 30,000 merchants served as of May 2025 [Daily Guardian, May 2025] [LionhearTV, May 2025] | Merchant penetration appears to have held above the 2023 level, though growth cadence needs cleaner independent verification |
| Monthly gross transaction volume and revenue each growing by more than 25% month on month as of May 2025 [Daily Guardian, May 2025] [LionhearTV, May 2025] | If accurate, monetization may be broadening beyond simple merchant sign-up counts |
The table does not size the market directly, but it does show why investors keep revisiting this segment: merchant count growth, if durable, can create a base for multiple revenue layers. The caution is that most of the market evidence remains company-reported or company-amplified, so the opportunity looks plausible before it looks fully benchmarked.
Lightly corroborated -- Market framing is supported by Microsoft Source Asia, DigitalCFO Asia, Archie Group, PR Newswire, IBS Intelligence, Daily Guardian, and LionhearTV, but no independent third-party market sizing report was available in the cited materials.
Competitive Landscape
Positioning
MIXED yufin sits in a crowded part of fintech where the nearest alternatives are not a single direct rival but a stack of substitutes: merchant acquirers for payments, B2B ordering networks for replenishment, digital wallets for bill pay and remittances, and distributor-led field teams for last-mile reach across the Philippines [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [yufin] [Loyal VC].
The clearest way to read the market is by function rather than by one-to-one company match, because the source set does not name direct startup competitors. On one side are incumbents that already touch sari-sari stores and micro-merchants through card acceptance, wallet cash-in and cash-out, airtime resale, logistics, or FMCG distribution; these players often own a single workflow well, but not the full merchant operating stack [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [Archie Group, January 2023]. On another side are newer commerce and fintech challengers that try to aggregate small merchants into software-driven channels for payments, ordering, and embedded financial products, a lane yufin explicitly frames as Distribution as a Service for the "last mile" [Loyal VC] [yufin]. The adjacent substitute is still the offline default: neighborhood merchants sourcing inventory through traditional distributors, tracking stock manually, and monetizing foot traffic without a digital layer, which is the behavior yufin says it is trying to change in the Philippines [Archie Group, January 2023] [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022].
Where yufin appears strongest today is distribution design, not product novelty alone. Public reporting describes a field-sales "ambassador" model used to onboard merchants in person, and that matters because small-store adoption in fragmented retail rarely turns on software features by themselves [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [Archie Group, January 2023]. The company also has some evidence of early density, with more than 2,500 merchants reported in June 2022 and more than 30,000 merchants reported by October 2023 in the Philippines, later reiterated in 2025 coverage [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [PR Newswire, October 2023] [Daily Guardian, May 2025]. If that merchant base is active rather than merely registered, it could create a useful data and cross-sell loop across payments, ordering, and embedded finance; if not, the edge is more perishable, because field distribution can be copied by better-capitalized operators and the product claims are still sourced mainly to the company and partners rather than to independent customer case studies [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [yufin] [LionhearTV, May 2025].
The main exposure is that yufin does not appear to own a monopoly channel, regulated balance sheet, or proprietary infrastructure layer from the public record. Its embedded working-capital and merchant-services narrative is credible as a wedge, but the available sources do not show that yufin controls the underlying financial rails, has exclusive enterprise distribution agreements, or has named anchor customers that would lock out alternatives [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [PR Newswire, October 2023]. That leaves it vulnerable to adjacent platforms with stronger capital bases or preexisting merchant touchpoints, especially if those players bundle payments, commerce, and credit into a single offer before yufin deepens usage. The Microsoft partnership is directionally helpful for scale and tooling, but it does not by itself establish a moat against merchant acquirers, wallets, distributors, or commerce software vendors already embedded in the same neighborhoods [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025].
The most plausible 18-month scenario is a convergence play in which the winner is the operator that turns merchant sign-up into repeat ordering and financial-product attachment, rather than the one with the broadest feature list. On the current public record, yufin is a winner if its reported 30,000-plus merchant base converts into sustained transaction density and financing demand, because that would strengthen both switching costs and underwriting inputs across the network [PR Newswire, October 2023] [Daily Guardian, May 2025]. The loser, if merchant activity remains shallow and registration outpaces engagement, is the stand-alone merchant app category, including yufin, because incumbents with existing payment, wallet, or distribution relationships would then have a simpler path to absorb the same use cases without paying the customer-acquisition cost of a fresh field network [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025].
Lightly corroborated -- Competitive framing is supported by public product descriptions and reported go-to-market details from Microsoft Source Asia, DigitalCFO Asia, Archie Group, Loyal VC, and PR Newswire, but the source set names no direct competitors and several capability claims remain company or partner sourced.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
The prize here is not another merchant app, it is a chance to become the transaction and distribution layer that thousands of neighborhood stores use to sell everyday goods, financial services, and digital products across Southeast Asia, starting from a base that the company says crossed 30,000 merchants in the Philippines by October 2023 [PR Newswire, October 2023] [IBS Intelligence, October 2023].
The headline opportunity is reasonably clear. If yufin can keep neighborhood merchants engaged as both commerce operators and distribution points, it could become default operating infrastructure for informal and micro-SME retail in selected Southeast Asian markets. That outcome is reachable, rather than purely aspirational, because the public record shows an early wedge that is concrete: field-sales onboarding for small merchants, a product set spanning payments, inventory, ordering, and digital distribution, and evidence that merchant count scaled from more than 2,500 in mid-2022 to more than 30,000 by late 2023 according to company announcements carried by regional publishers [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [Archie Group, January 2023] [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [PR Newswire, October 2023]. The May 2025 Microsoft profile also matters because it suggests yufin is trying to scale beyond a single utility use case and toward a broader merchant-services stack, including working capital access and resale of services such as insurance, OTT content, and transport tickets [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025].
That matters economically because the model appears multi-layered. A merchant who first adopts digital ordering or bill payments can, in principle, become a repeat user of higher-frequency workflows and a reseller of third-party products, while brands and financial-services providers gain a route into fragmented last-mile distribution [Loyal VC] [F6S, accessed October 2026] [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025]. In other words, the merchant relationship can support both software utility and demand aggregation, which is a more durable position than a single-feature payments tool if retention holds.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merchant OS for neighborhood retail | yufin becomes the primary operating app for tens of thousands of sari-sari stores and similar small merchants, handling ordering, payments, inventory, and service resale in one workflow | Continued product bundling around POS-on-phone, inventory, ordering, and embedded finance, plus evidence of merchant scale already achieved [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [PR Newswire, October 2023] | Public materials show the company already positioning the product as an integrated merchant toolset rather than a single-point solution, and reported merchant sign-ups moved quickly in the Philippines [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [PR Newswire, October 2023] |
| Last-mile distribution network for brands and fintechs | yufin evolves from merchant software into a distribution rail that FMCG and financial-services firms use to reach fragmented end demand through local stores | Expansion of ecosystem partnerships and packaged distribution offerings for consumer brands, insurers, and service providers [PR Newswire, October 2023] [F6S, accessed October 2026] | The company and investor materials consistently describe the value proposition as helping larger enterprises reach and monetize the last mile through merchant nodes [F6S, accessed October 2026] [Loyal VC] |
| Embedded commerce and credit layer | yufin uses transaction and supply-ordering data to add financing and higher-margin merchant services on top of everyday commerce activity | Broader rollout of embedded working capital and AI-assisted ordering flows highlighted in 2025 materials [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [yufin, August 2025] | The product narrative already includes embedded working capital and smarter supply ordering, which are logical extensions if transaction data quality and merchant activity deepen over time [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [yufin, August 2025] |
The compounding logic rests on density. yufin's field-sales ambassador model is operationally heavy at the start, but it can create a local network of merchants that are both customers and distribution endpoints for additional services [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [Archie Group, January 2023]. Once a merchant uses the phone as a point-of-sale device, manages inventory, and orders supplies through the same app, the switching cost is no longer only about software, it is about access to a bundle of revenue lines and operating workflows [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025]. If yufin then layers in service resale and working capital, the relationship can deepen further, because the company is not asking for a new merchant behavior each time, it is attaching a new product to an existing cash-flow loop [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [Apple App Store].
There are early signs of that flywheel starting, even if the evidence remains largely company-linked. Merchant count reportedly rose from more than 2,500 in June 2022 to more than 30,000 by October 2023, while 2025 coverage said monthly gross transaction volume and revenue were each growing by more than 25% month on month [DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] [PR Newswire, October 2023] [Daily Guardian, May 2025] [LionhearTV, May 2025]. Separately, the company has said its yuOrder service was delivering more than 3,500 items daily to the last mile, which, if sustained, would suggest order flow rather than only merchant sign-up growth [yufin]. Those metrics do not yet establish retention or monetization quality, but they do fit the pattern of a business trying to turn merchant acquisition into transaction density.
The size of the win is easiest to frame as a scenario, not a forecast. If yufin were to become a meaningful last-mile commerce and embedded-finance platform across multiple Southeast Asian markets, the result could look less like a niche merchant tool and more like a regional distribution infrastructure company. No credible public-market comparable or cited TAM figure was provided in the source set, so valuation discipline has to stay conditional. Under the strongest public scenario, where the company proves that merchant software adoption reliably pulls through payments, ordering volume, and third-party service distribution at scale, the upside case is that it commands infrastructure-style strategic value to payments, commerce, or financial-services acquirers in the region (scenario, not a forecast) [Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] [F6S, accessed October 2026] [Loyal VC]. The central reason to take that possibility seriously is not abstract market size, but the specific shape of the model: a fragmented merchant base, recurring operational workflows, and a path to monetizing both the store and the suppliers trying to reach it.
Lightly corroborated -- This section relies on a mix of independent regional coverage and company-linked materials, with merchant-scale claims corroborated by multiple public reports but monetization and product-depth claims still substantially dependent on company-associated sources.
Sources
Public sources
[Crunchbase] yufin - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/miti-ventures
[DigitalCFO Asia, June 2022] yufin announces 2500 small merchant sign-ups to its digital platform in the Philippines | https://digitalcfoasia.com/2022/06/27/yufin-announces-2500-small-merchant-sign-ups-to-its-digital-platform-in-the-philippines/
[PR Newswire, October 2023] yufin marks growth milestone with a suite of partnerships to support SME merchants in the Philippines | https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/yufin-marks-growth-milestone-with-a-suite-of-partnerships-to-support-sme-merchants-in-the-philippines-301961686.html
[Microsoft Source Asia, May 2025] yufin unlocks digital growth for the Philippines’ smallest businesses | https://news.microsoft.com/source/asia/2025/05/16/yufin-unlocks-digital-growth-for-the-philippines-smallest-businesses/
[yufin] yufin, “About” | https://yufin.ph/about/
[Archie Group, January 2023] When the corner merchant is a financial hub | https://archiegroup.com/archie-blog/2023/1/25/when-the-corner-merchant-is-a-financial-hub
[Daily Guardian, May 2025] Fintech empowers Filipino microbusinesses through digital tools | https://www.dailyguardian.com.ph/blog/fintech-empowers-filipino-microbusinesses-through-digital-tools
[F6S, accessed October 2026] yufin | https://www.f6s.com/company/yufin
[Loyal VC] yufin | https://www.loyal.vc/company/yufin
[LionhearTV, May 2025] yufin empowers 30,000 Filipino microbusinesses through digital tools | https://www.lionheartv.net/2025/05/yufin-empowers-30000-filipino-microbusinesses-through-digital-tools/
[IBS Intelligence, October 2023] yufin marks growth milestone with suite of partnerships to support SME merchants in Philippines | https://ibsintelligence.com/ibsi-news/yufin-marks-growth-milestone-with-suite-of-partnerships-to-support-sme-merchants-in-philippines/
[LinkedIn, accessed 2026] yufin | https://www.linkedin.com/company/yufin/
[Apple App Store, accessed 2026] yufin | https://apps.apple.com/
[yufin, August 2025] yufin at INSEAD AI Venture Lab’s Founders Sprint | https://yufin.ph/yufin-at-insead-ai-venture-labs-founders-sprint/
Articles about yufin
- yufin's $1M Pre-seed Backs a Field-Sales Army for the Philippines' Corner Stores — The Singapore-based fintech, backed by Mastercard's CMO, is using an 'ambassador' model to onboard small merchants and prepare for a seed round.