PayMongo gets additional $31 million funding

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine fintech company PayMongo recently secured $31 million in Series B funding, which brings the company’s total funding to just under $46 million.

Justin Mateen’s JAM Fund, Philippine VC firms ICCP-SBI Venture Partners, and Lisa Gokongwei’s Kaya Founders, together with existing investors Global Founders Capital and SOMA Capital participated in the fund.

European fintech unicorns and startups Qonto, Viva Wallet, Billie and Scalable also participated.

“This investment is a testament to our growth and the continued growth of our merchants. With this Series B, we will invest further in our merchants’ successes by giving them more means to move money seamlessly online,” PayMongo CEO and co-founder Francis Plaza said.

Since closing its Series A in September 2020, PayMongo grew its merchant base by three times and its monthly transaction volumes by four times.

The company is a payments system that caters to all businesses.

It aims to achieve sustainable growth by serving small (and micro) and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for 99 percent of businesses in the Philippines and have historically been underserved by traditional payment providers.

“As one of PayMongo’s first investors, I’ve seen their path from simplifying payments for a handful of businesses to now being a company that thousands of merchants depend on for their day-to-day operations,” said JAM Fund and Tinder founder Justin Mateen.

PayMongo will scale up its operations by strengthening its current payments infrastructure and venturing into more financial services.

This involves building products such as disbursements, capital lending, “buy now, pay later,” subscriptions and recurring payments, among many others, the company said in a statement.

PayMongo will likewise explore how the Philippines can serve as a springboard for the digital transformation of financial services in other emerging markets.

According to a report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Co., the Philippine digital economy is predicted to grow to $40 billion by 2025, having registered the fastest growth rate in Southeast Asia throughout the pandemic. Its growth in recent years has been led by companies and consumers adopting digital platforms and services to embrace the shift to e-commerce.