Mynt, the holding company of Globe’s fintech arm managing the GCash e-wallet, is the lone Philippines startup that made it onto Credit Suisse’s list of 35 unicorns in Southeast Asia.
Credit Suisse’s list highlights technology companies in several industries and countries in the sub-region that are valued at over US$1 billion or wherein the last funding round was at least US$800 million and backed by strong business momentum.
The e-wallet was included in the “ASEAN Unicorns, Scaling New Heights” list thanks to ABS-CBN News’ report that Mynt’s valuation was close to US$1 billion as of 2021.
Earlier this year, Mynt had raised over US$175 million from investment firm Bow Wave Capital Management and its existing shareholders across multiple tranches.
In a primarily cash-driven society like the Philippines, Mynt is the first mover in the country in enabling financial access for consumers and merchants. Its services include payments, remittances, loans, business solutions, and platforms.
Over the past year and a half, the pandemic became a catalyst in the acceleration of digital payments and e-commerce in the country, with merchants and consumers shifting from offline to online transactions during the year.
Since then, GCash reported that its target gross transaction value seen to triple to over P3 trillion this year from over P1 trillion in 2020.
Meanwhile, registered users continued to increase, with over 44 million registered users and more than 2.5 million merchants and social sellers as of end-June.
Moreover, active users continued to increase, growing 2.8x as against the same period the year before.
“Wallet sizes are increasing, credit traffic flow is accelerating, and use cases are widening, and Mynt has been able to capitalise on these trends with the transformation of its GCash service to a super app that includes e-commerce (GLife) and financial services (lending, insurance, savings, and investments),”
the research said.
The report looks at the top startup companies in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Companies in Singapore and Indonesia comprise 74% of the 35 unicorns. Sector-wise, fintech leads the pack, with 26%, followed by e-commerce – 20%, logistics -11%, and diversified internet – 8%.
