PayMongo, a Filipino-owned online payment platform, recently secured $12 million in a Series A financing round led by Stripe with participation from the company’s other existing investors – Y Combinator, Global Founders Capital and a new investor, Bedrock Capital.

The fresh investment brings PayMongo's total funding to almost $15 million, just a little over a year since the company launched in June 2019 with a seed round of US$2.7 million, one of the largest among Philippine financial technology startups.

“The Series A funding builds on an exceptional first year for PayMongo. We’re thrilled to have amazing investors to support our mission of building the digital economic infrastructure in the Philippines,” said Francis Plaza, PayMongo CEO and co-founder.

The new capital enables PayMongo to further accelerate the rollout of new features and products in its aggressive roadmap and build up its product, design, and engineering teams.

“We are committed to build the best payment experience for Filipino businesses,” Plaza said.

Philippine digital transactions surged by 42 percent in value between January and April 2020, and would likely meet the targets set by the country’s central bank – a growth driven by the necessary shift online amid strict community quarantine measures.

PayMongo’s transaction volume soared 15 times since the year started. By April, a month after the government imposed a nationwide lockdown, thousands of Filipino businesses, including small entrepreneurs, restaurants and fast food chains, have signed up for its products and services. PayMongo’s user-friendly payment platform allowed them to transition to digital easily, continue operating online, as well as accept digital payments such as credit and debit cards and e-wallets in a few simple steps.

According to Noah Pepper, Stripe’s APAC Business Lead, “We’ve been impressed with the PayMongo team and the speed at which they’ve made digital payments more accessible for so many businesses across the Philippines. We fully support their vision to bring many more Filipino businesses online. Given the disruption caused by COVID-19, a service like theirs is simply vital for the country’s businesses and economic future.”

PayMongo’s standard, easy-to-integrate PayMongo API accelerates internet businesses by lowering integration time to a few lines of code. The company's PayMongo Links product and e-commerce plugins power businesses without the need for development time. The company's payment platform delivers stress-free onboarding, consistent checkout experience and worry-free fraud detection systems.

“PayMongo is enabling businesses to meet rapidly growing online demand with intuitive, easy to use products,” said Spencer Peterson, Principal at New York-based Bedrock Capital.

“We're impressed by the pace at which this team executes and thrilled to support their vision for the future of digital payments and commerce.”

PayMongo is the first Filipino-owned fintech start-up incubated by Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator, the premier seed accelerator in the world. Y Combinator and other Silicon Valley investors funded PayMongo’s seed round. They include Stripe, a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet; Founders Fund, the San Francisco-based venture capitalist that supports innovative technologies of many start-ups across the world; Founders Fund’s Peter Thiel, who is also the co-founder of PayPal and the first investor of Facebook; and with participation from Global Founders Capital and a number of other angel investors.