Philippines fintech player Mynt gets $300m at $2b valuation

Mynt, also known as Globe Fintech Innovations, is the fintech arm of Globe Telecom, the largest mobile carrier in the Philippines, and describes itself as the country’s only unicorn.

Investors in the Philippines began to expect a breakthrough moment in unicorn creation around 2018, when KKR and Tencent Holdings invested in fintech provider Voyager Innovations. That company raised $167 million in June and is now said to be worth around $1 billion.

Voyager, like Mynt, is a unit of a larger corporate rather than an independent start-up. Its parent is local telecom giant PLDT. Industry participants claim this trend reflects a deep-seated cultural aversion to risk in the Philippines, which means the country lacks the grassroots entrepreneurialism of most start-up ecosystems.

Mynt has been able to exploit relatively thin competition to establish dominant market positioning during a pandemic-driven period of digitization. The company claims its payment service has more than 48 million users, nearly half the national population, and is on track to reach PHP3 trillion ($59.3 billion) in annual gross transaction volume. This would represent a 3x increase on 2020.

Daily app log-ins and daily active transactions have peaked at 19 million and 12 million, respectively. There are now three million merchants and social media sellers using the platform.

Assets under management for the company’s GSave product grew from PHP5 billion to PHP9 billion during 2020, while the GInvest product is said to have 70% of the local market. GInsure, a microinsurance offering, is said to account for one-third of all new insurance policies in the country.

“The investment into Mynt marks our continued commitment and strong belief in the long-term prospects of the Philippines as one of the fastest growing digital economies in the region,” Saurabh Agarwal, a managing director of Warburg Pincus, said in a statement. “Mynt has a dominant market position in the Philippines and is well-positioned with its best-in-class management team, innovative technology, and superior product offerings.”

Globe, US-based Amplo Ventures, and local conglomerate Ayala Corporation also joined the latest investment. Bow Wave, a US mobile payments specialist, backed a $175 million round in January at a post-money valuation of about $1 billion. That round also included Ant Group and Ayala.

Globe and Ant are reportedly each diluting their holdings from 40% in January to 35%. Bow Wave is maintaining its 14% position, while Ayala will fall from 6% to 5%.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Financials
• Technology
• Expansion
• Philippines
• Warburg Pincus Asia
• Insight Partners
• Ayala Corporation
• Financial Services
• Fintech
• insurance