Korea's Viva Republica gets $23.7m Series B

Existing investors Altos Ventures and KTB Network also participated in the round. The capital will be used to accelerate the rollout of new products aimed at leveraging Korea's high mobile penetration to address inefficiencies in domestic payment options.

The investment coincides with the launch of two products: Toss Loans, an app that provides credit rating validation services in order to improve microloan access; and Toss Finance Dashboard, which allows users to identify patterns and troubleshoot problems in their personal finances by organizing comprehensive transaction histories.

Viva has processed $1 billion in transactions since launching its flagship mobile payments product, Toss, in 2015. It claims to have achieved a $3 billion gross transaction volume run rate, with tens of thousands of users added per day. The company is said to have more than four million customers, making Toss one of the five most widely used payment apps in Asia.

"Toss' user acquisition and retention numbers are phenomenal. Its growth is four times that of any comparable company in the US, including Venmo, at this stage in Toss' lifecycle," Eric Kim, co-founder and managing partner at Goodwater, said in a statement. "One of the reasons for its appeal is the ease of accessing funds. Toss has eliminated the delays which hinder P2P [peer-to-peer] transfer companies in the US."

Founded in 2014, Goodwater focuses on consumer-focused technology start-ups and was recently active in Korea with participation in $17.5 million round for online retailer Memebox.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Early-stage
• Financials
• Technology
• South Korea
• Qualcomm Ventures
• Altos Ventures
• Venture
• Financial Services