SYFE

Dhruv Arora spent years trading at UBS and Credit Suisse in Hong Kong and Singapore. He saw how the wealthy got cheap, smart advice while everyone else paid brutal fees for mediocre products.

That gap bugged him. So in 2017 he started building Syfe, and launched it in Singapore in July 2019.

The idea was to hand ordinary savers the same low-cost, diversified portfolios that big institutions take for granted. No minimum account size worth mentioning.

No commission-hungry salesperson.

Syfe is an app that invests your money for you. You pick a goal or a risk level.

It builds a portfolio of low-cost funds and ETFs, then rebalances it automatically. You pay a small yearly management fee based on how much you invest.

That is basically it. It also runs a cash management product that pays interest on idle money, plus a brokerage arm for people who want to buy individual stocks.

The more assets it manages, the more fees it collects.

The core product is the automated investing platform, with portfolios built around low-cost ETFs and funds. Syfe Cash+ is the cash management account that pays interest on money sitting idle.

Syfe Brokerage lets users trade US and Singapore stocks and ETFs directly. There are also themed and income portfolios for people who want a specific tilt, like dividends or REITs.

Syfe leaned hard into Singapore first instead of trying to be everywhere. It built trust with a home market that loves saving but hates fees.

Then it added products fast. Cash management during a period of rising interest rates pulled in a flood of deposits.

A brokerage arm caught the retail trading wave. By stacking new products on top of the same app, Syfe kept existing customers moving more money in.

It crossed $10 billion in assets in 2025 and started pushing into Hong Kong and Australia.

Robo-advisors are a tough business. Fees are thin.

Customers can leave with a few taps. And Syfe is fighting giants like banks and StashAway on one side, plus free brokerage apps on the other.

To make the numbers work it has to keep assets growing fast and keep costs low. Turning $10 billion in assets into steady profit is the real test.

Plenty of robo-advisors have raised big and still struggle to make money.

Syfe's early backing came from Valar Ventures, the fintech firm co-founded by Peter Thiel. Valar led the Series A in 2020 and stayed in for the Series B.

That was a strong signal. Valar had already backed winners like N26 and Wise.

Later rounds brought in growth investors as Syfe scaled past $10 billion in assets. The Thiel connection gave a young Singapore startup instant credibility with global money.