1982 Ventures, East Ventures, and Saison Capital, and Alternate Ventures have all invested in Lista, a bookkeeping programme for micro, small, and medium businesses in the Philippines.
Willy Arifin of Monde Nissin Family Ventures, Brian Cu of Grab Philippines, Amrish Rau of Pinelabs, Kunal Shah of CRED, Jitendra Gupta of Jupiter Bank, and Aurelien Pichon and Alap Bharadwaj of Google APAC also invested.
The cash will be used to expand Lista’s personnel and product offerings in order to serve additional MSMEs.
Aaron Villegas, a seasoned entrepreneur with product experience, and Khriz Lim, a former Grab executive, established Lista.
MSMEs (freelancers, logistics operators, riders, and other small enterprises) can use the Lista app to digitize their operations. They may also use the app to handle their money, including debt tracking, transaction recording, and invoice generation.
Lista claims to have helped MSMEs in the Philippines recover around US $1.5 million in receivables since its start in September.
According to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, MSMEs are critical to the Philippine economy since they account for 99.51 percent of business establishments and employ about 63 percent of the country’s workforce (PSA). They were, however, badly impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic. According to the country’s Department of Trade and Industry, the lengthy lockdown and quarantines caused over 74% of these MSMEs to shut down.
“MSMEs are the backbone of the Philippine economy, and it’s time we stop leaving them behind. Through this app, we want to revolutionize the way MSMEs operate and provide them with a reliable digital partner,” said co-founder Khriz Lim.
