GTR Ventures has taken an equity stake in supply chain management and finance platform Octet Europe. Details on the investment were not disclosed.
GTR Ventures has offices in both Singapore and London and this is their 10th Fintech focused investment but first in Europe.
Octet Europe is said to provide a state-of-the-art, cloud-based B2B trade ecosystem that allows EU buyers and their sellers in the EU and around the world to settle B-to-B purchases using direct debit/direct withdrawal/Giro and corporate cards (debit or credit) issued under any one of the major card schemes, such as MasterCard, American Express and/or Visa.
The platform is said to easily integrate with clients and financial institutions via APIs.
Octet Europe is managed by co-founders Margrith Lutschg-Emmenegger and Marius Savin.
Lutschg-Emmenegger is a veteran of the global trade finance and factoring markets, formerly president of Fimbank in Malta, managing director at WestLB and chairman of International Factors Group.
Savin has held senior positions at Standard Chartered Bank, Egypt Factors and Fimbank, plus advisory roles at International Factors Group and Afreximbank.
Lutschg-Emmenegger said he expects the investment from GTR to help link European customers with those in Aisa.
“We look forward to many educational and business enhancing events with the GTR group and to benefit from their great access to the community while we will be bringing a very exciting solution to the whole industry.”
Kelvin Tan, co-founder and Chief Investment officer of GTR Ventures, said Octet Europe will provide many benefits to SMEs by enhancing productivity gains as well as better risk controls.
“More importantly, Octet Europe represents for our partners and portfolio, a new channel that leverages B-to-B payment ecosystems — to provide banks, insurers, and trade-focused Fintechs, greater market access to digitally enabled B-to-B communities.”
Peter Gubbins, co-founder & director of GTR Ventures said the supply chain management solution fits neatly into the suite of existing GTR Ventures investments.