US $300 M raised by Philippines- based Mynt, becomes first fintech unicorn

Mynt, prominent digital financial solutions firm in the Philippines and the owner of the GCash mobile payment system, has raised more than $300 million in a capital round.

The latest round was led by global growth investor Warburg Pincus. Along with previous investors Bow Wave Capital, new investors included Insight Partners, Itai Tsiddon, Amplo Ventures, Globe Telecom, and Ayala Corporation.

Mynt is now valued at over $2 billion, making it the Philippines’ first fintech unicorn (here’s a comprehensive list of Southeast Asia’s unicorns). This agreement comes on the heels of ASP Philippines’ announcement earlier this year of nearly $175 million in investment.

Mynt was created in 2015 as a partnership between Globe, Ayala, and Ant Financial, the archipelago’s largest telecommunications company. It provides credit, savings, insurance, loans, and investments, among other services.

The main product of Mynt is GCash. Customers may buy prepaid airtime, pay bills at over 600 partner billers around the Philippines, send and receive money anywhere in the Philippines, and shop from over 3 million partner merchants and social sellers using this app. Customers can also save, borrow, invest, and acquire credit.

Mynt also runs Fuse, a micro-and small-business finance platform for Filipinos. GInsure (microinsurance), GCredit, and GLoans are some of the company’s other offerings.

The fintech presently has 48 million users, or roughly half of the country’s population, and is on target to hit PHP3 trillion in gross transaction value by the end of the year.

“…we have been able to continuously expand by introducing game-changing innovations while improving our profitability profile,” said Martha Sazon, president and CEO of Mynt.

GLoan allows qualifying consumers to borrow up to P25,000 with a 12-month payback period, while GCredit disburses about P1 billion in loans each month.

It also plans to provide “buy now, pay later” items this year.