Samsung VC makes first investment in SE Asia

Swingvy employees are all smiles in a photo released on the human resource company's Facebook page

By Baek Byung-yeul

Singapore-based human resource platform startup Swingvy is Samsung Venture Investment's first investment in Southeast Asia.

Samsung Electronics, one of the major shareholders of the Samsung Group's venture capital arm, confirmed Friday that Swingvy recently raised $7 million in a Series A financing ― the first funding round for a startup ― from a group of investors comprised of Samsung Venture Investment, Aviva Ventures and Baas Investment.

Swingvy, established in 2016, provides an all-in-one platform for a company's administrative processes, including human resources, payroll and employee benefits. More than 5,000 companies in Southeast Asia have been using the platform and the firm has offices in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Seoul.

“Our vision is to be an operating system of companies. We're reimagining the idea of the HR platform from scratch and will build a new type of organization management platform to create a workplace where work empowers people,” Choi Seo-jin, CEO and one of the firm's co-founders, said. He had worked at Korean computer security firm AhnLab.

Samsung Venture Investment was established in 1999 and its major shareholders are Samsung Group affiliates including Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDI, Samsung Securities, Samsung C&T, Samsung Heavy Industries and Samsung Electro-Mechanics

This is the first time the venture capital arm has invested in a Southeast Asia-based startup. It had focused on investing in companies based in North America and Europe.

The move can be interpreted as the group's bid to secure new growth engines after the Samsung Electronics board agreed on April 30 to provide 198 billion won ($169.3 million) for Samsung Venture Investment's new technology investment fund. Samsung Electronics said this is “to strengthen competitiveness of existing businesses and discover new growth drivers.”