Philippines payment gateway PayMongo gets $31M Series B, will explore regional expansion – TechCrunch

PayMongo founders (from left to right): Jaime Hing III, Chief Technology Officer, Francis Plaza, Chief Executive Officer and Luis Sia, Chief Commercial Officer

Philippines-based fintech PayMongo, which enables merchants to accept digital payments, announced today it has raised $31 million in Series B funding with an eye on regional expansion. Investors include Justin Mateen’s JAM Fund, ICCP-SBI Venture Partners and Lisa Gokongwei’s Kaya Founders, along with returning investors Global Founders Capital and SOMA Capital. The startup says the round also included founders from European fintechs like Qonta, Viva Wallet, Billie and Scalable.

This brings PayMongo’s total funding to just under $46 million. Its last funding was a $12 million Series A announced in 2020 and led by Stripe.

The company works with businesses of all sizes, but targets micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses in particular, enabling them to accept different forms of payments, including credit cards, online wallets and over-the-counter. Its products include PayMongo API and e-commerce plugins. The new funding will be used to further develop PayMongo’s current payments infrastructure and add more financial services, including disbursements, capital lending, BNPL, and subscriptions and recurring payments.

Part of PayMongo’s product roadmap includes acquiring new licenses that will allow it to operate more financial services. At the same time, the company is also exploring regional expansion.

“There is so much more work to do in the Philippines. We also forecast more than doubling our team size to support this increasing demand and deliver on our aggressive product roadmap. In parallel, we have started some initial exploration and leg work to expand in the SE Asia region, a work we have kicked off last year,” co-founder and CEO Francis Plaza told TechCrunch in an email.

Other digital payment gateways in the Philippines include DragonPay, PesoPay, PayMaya and Paynamics. Plaza told TechCrunch in an email that the company differentiates itself by its focus on SMBs and high-growth startups and companies since it was founded in 2019.

“Beyond that, as we work with thousands of businesses on the platform, we are geared towards building more products and services that not only enables merchants to easily accept payments but also to grow through access to other financial services,” he said. “From the ability to move money, store balances, access to credit and other expanded payment options for customers.” Plaza added that it is already testing out several new products and services in beta with merchants.

In a statement, Justin Mateen, the founder of Tinder and JAM Fund, said “As one of PayMongo’s first investors, I’ve seen their path from simplifying payments for a handful of businesses to now being a company that thousands of merchants depend on for their day-to-day operations. I’m excited by their progress and thrilled to support the team once again as they generate greater economic opportunities through the digital economy.”