Philippines fintech player Coins raises $30m
Coins, a Philippines-based financial technology provider focused on blockchain-enabled payment services, has received a USD 30m investment led by Ribbit Captial.
The investment has been billed as a Series C round. Coins was acquired last month by Joffre Capital, a US and Singapore-based technology buyout investor. Previous investments include Naspers Ventures - now Prosus Ventures - providing USD 5m in 2017 and a USD 5m round led by Quona Capital the prior year.
Launched in 2014, Coins markets itself as the most established crypto brand in the Philippines. It claims to be the first blockchain company in Asia to hold both virtual currency and electronic money issuer licenses awarded by a central bank.
The app allows more than 16m users, some of whom do not have bank accounts, to buy and sell various cryptocurrencies and access services around e-wallets and payments. The goal is to become the leading platform for all crypto, web3, and play-to-earn gaming in Southeast Asia.
The fresh capital will go towards expanding web3-related operations, customer acquisition, entering new geographies, and introducing new products and services. Specific plans include adding more cryptocurrency tokens, upgrading and relaunching the Coins Pro order book exchange, offering additional crypto-focused merchant and payment services, and supporting gaming-related financial products.
“As the Philippines continues to witness the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, there is a real need for a secure, regulated, and user-friendly product in the market,” Coins CEO Wei Zhou said in a statement.
“We are solving that problem by delivering crypto and payment services that allow our customers to access, invest, trade, and spend their crypto assets seamlessly as a part of their daily lifestyles.”
Blockchain-related fintech in the Philippines is a niche area but considered prospective in light of the country’s massive remittance market and a willingness by local authorities to sandbox business models. Other actors in this space include US-based and Philippines-focused Abra, which raised a USD 12m Series C in 2019 led by American Express Ventures.
Both Abra and Coins have received funding from crypto specialists Digital Currency Group and Pantera Capital.
Joffre was founded in 2020 by a group of entrepreneurs and executives in technology and finance who held senior positions at Amazon, Baidu, Binance, The Blackstone Group, Warburg Pincus, Yahoo, and Verizon. The firm described Coins as its second fintech investment in the past 12 months but did not offer specifics.
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