The Philippines’ only unicorn, digital financial solutions provider Mynt, the company behind GCash payment services app, has raised over $300 million in funding and is now valued at over $2 billion.
Global investment giant Warburg Pincus, New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners, and Bow Wave Capital, one of Mynt’s existing investors, led the funding round, Mynt disclosed Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021.
Itai Tsiddon and Amplo Ventures as well as Globe Telecom Inc. and Ayala also participated in the investment.
Nearly half of the national population, over 48 million users, have turned to Mynt as the “go-to” payment and financial services solution since the onset of the pandemic.
With the continued relevance of the app among its users, Todate, Mynt is on track to reach P3 trillion of gross transaction value, three times more than last year’s record number.
The company has also recorded peak daily app log-ins of 19 million and daily active transactions of 12 million.
"We have been able to continuously expand by introducing game-changing innovations while improving our profitability profile,” said Martha Sazon, President and CEO of Mynt.
“Our new partners, Warburg, Insight, Itai Tsiddon and Amplo, bring strategic value our vision towards finance for all,” she added.
So far, its merchants and social sellers now number 3 million. It has also achieved scale while improving its unit economics, delivering positive EBITDA and net income in mid-2021.
"Warburg Pincus, Insight Partners, and other investors into Mynt and GCash validate the strides the company made in providing access to financial services to more Filipinos and highlighting the Philippines to the global investor audience," according to Ernest Cu, Chairman of the Board of Mynt and President and CEO of Globe.
"Together with the continued support of Mynt’s existing shareholders, we are confident of furthering Mynt’s market leadership and creating positive and transformative disruption in the Philippine financial services sector,” he underscored.
“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, Managing Director of Warburg Pincus, explained.
"GCash created the most compelling product to reach the massively underserved market in the Philippines,” Deven Parekh, Managing Director at Insight Partners commented.
Hence, “Our investment in Mynt fits within our global thesis of increasing financial inclusion using digital tools."
Mynt offers a full array of financial services, spanning credit, savings, insurance, loans, and investments.
Assets Under Management (AUM) for its GSave product has grown to over P9 billion, from P5 billion in 2020.
Already, its GInvest product captured 70 percent of the domestic market of total UITF accounts. GInsure, GCash’s microinsurance offering launched in 2020, accounts for 1/3 of all new insurance policies issued in the Philippines.
Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Fuse and other banking partners, Mynt also offers credit to users, on the back of its proprietary trust and scoring platform.
GCredit disburses over P1 billion worth of loans each month, with P15 billion worth having been disbursed as of June 2021, and shows the best repayment rates locally with the lowest past-due and non-performing loans.
Mynt likewise piloted GLoan, a cash loan product that allows qualified users to borrow as much as P25,000, with repayment spread over 12 months. The company plans to launch “Buy Now, Pay Later” products within the year.
GCash was also the first financial app to launch a sustainability initiative via its GForest feature, a gamified environmental stewardship program where users convert their green points acquired from using GCash into a virtual tree, which in turn would be planted as an actual tree in critical locations within the Philippines.
At present, the GForest feature within the app has over 8.7 million users.