NextPay co-founders Don Pansacola (L) and Aldrich Tan
NextPay, a digital financial solutions platform in the Philippines, has raised US$1.6 million in seed funding co-led by Golden Gate Ventures, and Gentree Fund, a private investment vehicle of the Sy Family, which owns Filipino conglomerate SM Group.
Other investors, who participated in the round, are Tribe Capital, Broadhaven Ventures, 1982 Ventures, Saison Capital, and Razorpay, besides Rohit Mulani of GoTrade and Abhinay Peddisetty and Chinmay Chauhan of BukuWarung.
Goodwater Capital, which has invested in Facebook, Spotify, and Twitter, also co-invested, along with local VCs such as Kickstart Ventures (Ayala Group), Foxmont Capital, and First Asia Ventures, as well as angel investor Lisa Gokongwei of JG Summit also joined.
The funding will be used to grow NextPay’s suite of services, expand its customer base, and introduce new digital banking solutions to micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
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“We believe that business banking will continue to digitally evolve, as the Philippines accelerates its digital transformation initiatives. This investment supports our goal of putting the power of big banks in the hands of small businesses,” said NextPay CEO and co-founder Don Pansacola.
“The success of our seed funding exercise will help us accelerate our plans of introducing more meaningful digital banking solutions, including, but not limited to, corporate cards, loans, and integrations with other platforms focused on MSMEs. We will also be hiring more talent to make the NextPay platform more comprehensive, simple, and easier to use and avail of,” NextPay Chief Experience Officer and co-founder Aldrich Tan said.
Launched amid the pandemic in 2020, NextPay is an online platform that provides underserved customers democratised access to easy and affordable financial services” such as digital invoicing, cash management, and batch payments to any bank or e-wallet in the Philippines.
The startup positions itself as an alternative to bank accounts for small businesses and entrepreneurs in the Philippines. Through the platform, companies can collect customer payments via digital invoices, manage their cash, and pay their employees, suppliers, or bills in batches to any bank or e-wallet.
The startup operates on a pay-per-use model and does not require any set-up fees, maintaining balances, or steep requirements.
Since its launch, NextPay has processed over US$9.1 million in digital transactions for more than 100 businesses with over 3,500 employees.
Earlier, NextPay received $125,000 in pre-seed investment as part of Y Combinator programme in April.
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“Managing your businesses’ finances efficiently and confidently is mission-critical to success, and NextPay is building industry-leading digital banking solutions for SMEs to better manage their finances: from payroll to collections, to invoicing,” Golden Gate Ventures Partner Justin Hall said.
“NextPay uniquely addresses the local needs of its customers by matching SMEs looking to go digital with mobile and convenient digital financial tools, which scales dynamically with their businesses. As a key infrastructure layer for our budding Philippines startup ecosystem, Gentree believes that NextPay will play a key role in supporting our entrepreneurs and enabling the Philippines digital economy,” Gentree Vice President Mark Sng remarked.
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Image Credit: NextPay
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