South Korea-Based Chazm Raises US$10.3 Million Series A Round To Expand Into The MENA

South Korea-based automotive fintech platform Chazm has raised a US$10.3 million Series A funding round as the company prepares to expand its vehicle leasing and lifecycle management model into Japan and the Middle East. 

The round was led by South Korea-based venture capital firm Stonebridge, with participation from UAE-based Shorooq and a group of financial and strategic investors, including KB Investment, Futureplay, Zero1NE Ventures, and LX Ventures, all of which are based out of South Korea. 

Founded by Sangyeon Jeong in South Korea in 2024, Chazm functions as a car purchasing and leasing platform focused on streamlining vehicle leasing, financing, and ownership data. The company is building a system that manages leased and rented vehicles across the full lifecycle, spanning contract origination, usage tracking, return, resale, and redistribution. At the center of its model is a data-driven framework designed to address inefficiencies and information gaps in automotive finance, enabling users to compare leasing options across multiple financial institutions, monitor vehicle performance and condition in real time, and make decisions based on consolidated data rather than fragmented sales channels.

Since its launch, Chazm has attracted more than 300,000 users and generated over $80 million in cumulative transaction volume. In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Jeong explained that the company's approach was shaped by the conditions that he identified early on in the South Korean automotive market. “The journey began from a critical observation of the KRW50 trillion ($34 billion) automotive rental and leasing market in South Korea, which was plagued by opaque fee structures and fragmented, offline-heavy processes," Jeong said. "Established to bridge the gap between inefficient traditional finance and modern digital platforms, we are currently based in Seoul, South Korea. Our core mission is to serve as the essential infrastructure for the mobility-as-a-service era. We provide a transparent, data-driven platform that manages the entire vehicle lifecycle—from contract comparison and automated, non-face-to-face credit assessment to vehicle return and secondary distribution. We are transforming cars from static assets into optimized 'structured financial products.'"

That same full-lifecycle integration is what drew investor attention, with Shane Shin, Founding Partner at Shorooq, highlighting how it reframes the model altogether. “What stood out to us was that Chazm is not simply digitizing leasing—it is structuring and standardizing the entire lifecycle of a vehicle as a financial asset," Shin said. "The platform brings together origination, financing, tracking, condition monitoring, resale, and redistribution into a single data layer, which fundamentally changes how vehicles are managed and monetized over time. That creates infrastructure value, not just transactional value.”

According to Shin, this is particularly valuable as the sector at large experiences a broader shift. "Automotive markets remain highly fragmented, with limited transparency around pricing, residual value, usage, and asset quality," he explained. "Chazm’s model introduces a level of real-time data visibility and operational standardization that allows vehicles to become more efficiently financed, redeployed, and traded across markets. From our perspective, this aligns closely with a broader shift we are seeing globally: large, opaque industries being rebuilt through software, embedded finance, and asset-level data infrastructure. The scalability comes from the fact that these inefficiencies are not unique to Korea—they exist across most automotive financing ecosystems globally." 

Shane Shin, Founding Partner, Shorooq.

For Shin, the industry’s biggest blind spot is not financing itself, but the disconnected infrastructure surrounding vehicles once they enter the market. “One of the most underestimated inefficiencies is the lack of structured lifecycle visibility around vehicles after financing or leasing originates," Shin noted. "In many markets, information around usage, condition, residual value, maintenance, and redeployment remains fragmented across disconnected stakeholders.” In practice, this results in inefficiencies across pricing, underwriting, resale processes, and liquidity in secondary markets, reinforcing the need for integrated data and standardized asset tracking. “Most people think automotive finance is simply a lending problem. In reality, it is an asset management and data problem,” Shin explained. “Another overlooked issue is how manual and commission-driven many vehicle distribution ecosystems still are. Consumers often lack transparency, while financial institutions struggle with inconsistent asset data and limited standardization. Platforms like Chazm matter because they create infrastructure that improves both sides simultaneously—better user experience and better financial visibility. Over time, that can fundamentally reshape how mobility assets are financed, traded, and managed across borders.” 

The company's early results in South Korea reflect how that approach has translated into operational outcomes. “By treating vehicles as structured financial products with predictable depreciation, we have effectively eliminated the ‘information asymmetry’ that once left consumers vulnerable to unpredictable monthly payments," Jeong said. "Our impact is best demonstrated by our productivity: we handle a contract volume per employee 40 times higher than traditional industry players. By optimizing the supply chain and minimizing distribution fees, we provide consumers with real-time, comparative pricing across multiple financial institutions, effectively ending the era of hidden commissions.” 

However, achieving that shift required addressing long-standing consumer behaviors tied to offline processes. “The biggest challenge was overcoming the deep-seated consumer habit of relying on ‘human-centric’ offline counseling," Jeong explained. "Consumers were accustomed to waiting for sales calls and fearing hidden costs. Convincing them that a transparent, non-face-to-face digital platform could offer better, more reliable terms required proof. We had to demonstrate that our platform wasn't just a sales channel but a financial engine that consistently yields lower total cost of ownership through rigorous data analysis.” 

As Chazm prepares to enter new markets in Japan and the Middle East, it is approaching expansion with an awareness that these user behaviors and industry structures differ across regions. “Entering these markets is a strategic move to scale our proven model of ‘efficiency-led distribution,’" Jeong said. "In Japan, the primary challenge is the highly conservative, relationship-based automotive ecosystem. We must prove that our platform integrates seamlessly with existing standards while delivering superior transparency. In the Middle East, the challenge lies in adapting to different regulatory frameworks and regional preferences for luxury and high-performance fleet management. However, with the support of our investors like Shorooq, we are confident in our ability to localize our technology. Our focus will be on building an infrastructure that supports the rapid electrification and modernization of the regional fleet market, ensuring that our data-driven model adds immediate value to local partners.” 

That expansion strategy has also shaped Jeong’s broader view of what it takes to build in automotive fintech, a sector where scale depends as much on operations as it does on software. “My core advice is to focus on operational efficiency as your moat," Jeong said. "Many startups in the automotive fintech space view themselves solely as software companies, ignoring the underlying physical asset management—the fintech part of the business. You must understand how to manage the lifecycle of a physical vehicle, from financing to resale.”  

“Solve for transparency," Jeong continued. "If the current market is opaque, your biggest competitive advantage is simply providing radical transparency. Next, build for scale. The automotive industry requires massive volume to thrive on slim margins. Design your systems to be highly automated; if your model relies on high-touch, manual processes, you will fail to scale. Also, be an infrastructure partner—do not position yourself as just a disruptor. Work with manufacturers and financial institutions to make their operations more efficient. If you can help them sell more cars with less risk, you become a partner they cannot live without. Lastly, be patient. The automotive industry is built on trust and legacy. It takes time to build, but once you earn that trust, you create a sustainable business that is incredibly hard to replicate.” 

Pictured in the lead image is Chazm founder Sangyeon Jeong. All images courtesy Chazm/Shorooq.