The terms of the acquisition were undisclosed and are subject to regulatory approvals. TASConnect will leverage SOLV Malaysia and SOLV Vietnam’s local sales teams to deepen its value chain financing offerings in digital distribution and supplier financing solutions for enterprise anchors in these key ASEAN markets. Both TASConnect and SOLVs were incubated by SC Ventures, Standard Chartered’s innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm.

“The synergy values to anchor clients of combining the SaaS enterprise-grade value chain solutions of TASConnect with the deep-tier offerings of the SOLVs are powerful. SC Ventures, as a common shareholder, helped identify the potential to leverage the emerging SOLV ventures in Malaysia and Vietnam to accelerate our geographic expansion into the two countries,” said Kingshuk Ghoshal, co-founder and CEO, TASConnect.

Over 418,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia remain largely untouched by technology, while over 60% of Vietnam’s 790,000 MSME ecosystems have unmet financing needs. The acquisition will benefit both TASConnect and the SOLVs to provide end-to-end supply chain financing solutions to Multinational Corporation anchor ecosystems and also to SMEs and financing partners. The acquisition is an example of how companies within the SC Ventures’ ecosystem can seize opportunities to build scale by leveraging each other’s strengths.

TASConnect’s platform-as-a-service offerings helps enterprise anchors to expand their scale and scope of supply chain financing without incurring high capital expenditure on IT or human resources. Once the acquisition is completed, TASConnect will be able to leverage the SOLVs’ local sales teams to accelerate its go-to-market in Malaysia and Vietnam.

Post-acquisition, SOLV Malaysia will be rebranded as TASConnect Malaysia. Branding for SOLV Vietnam is under review.

“It’s a win-win for SOLV Malaysia and TASConnect,” said Wendy Ang, CEO, SOLV Malaysia. “SOLV Malaysia was just emerging and building out the platform, now with the acquisition we can leverage TASConnect’s platform to offer multiple value chain solutions to our anchor clients.”

The merger of the two ventures will offer synergies in costs and operations while broadening the offerings for clients in Vietnam and Malaysia.

“At SC Ventures, we provide our businesses the advantage of leveraging each other’s strengths to bolster their offerings. We are confident that the coming together of these companies will offer a differentiated proposition in supply chain financing tech offerings for clients in Malaysia and Vietnam,” said Gautam Jain, member, SC Ventures and Board Chairman, TASConnect.”