Giovanni Casinelli is a co-founder of Aspire. He started the company in Singapore in 2018 with Andrea Baronchelli, who is its chief executive.
Aspire opened as a lender of working capital to small and medium-sized businesses that banks often passed over. It then widened the product to match what customers kept asking for: accounts that hold several currencies, corporate cards, supplier payments, customer collections and invoices that flow into accounting software.
A $32.5 million Series A followed in August 2019 and a Series B in September 2021. In February 2023 Aspire closed a $100 million Series C, co-led by Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital SEA, with PayPal Ventures, Tencent and LGT Capital Partners in the round.
By that date annualised total payment volume had tripled in twelve months to $12 billion, and Aspire served more than 15,000 businesses. The company is privately held.