Korea’s Fintech Startup Viva Republica Raises $64m At $2.2b Valuation

Seoul-based Viva Republica, Korea’s foremost financial technology startup backed by Paypal, has raised $64 million in its latest fundraising round, which values the maker of mobile financial services platform Toss at about $2.2 billion.

The company said the latest funding round was led by Aspex Management, a Hong Kong-based Asian equity investment firm, and backed by returning investors. including Singapore’s GIC, Sequoia Capital China, Kleiner Perkins, and others. So far, Viva Republica has raised about $250 million.

Viva Republica, ranked as one of 2018’s Fintech 100 by KPMG, launched Toss in 2015 as a simple and frictionless peer-to-peer money transfer service. The platform, however, saw tremendous growth over the years to become one of the world’s fastest-growing financial apps.

Toss now delivers a full suite of financial services, including banking, financial dashboard, credit score management, and investment products. It posted more than $42 billion of cumulative transactions.

Viva Republica last raised $80 million in a funding round in December. The said round was backed by Korean investors Kleiner Perkins and Ribbit Capital.

The Korean fintech firm said the latest funding round is the first time for Aspex Management, the lead investor, to invest in a private company since its inception in 2018. Aspex invests across the public and private equity markets.

Aspex Management founder and CIO Hermes Li said Toss occupies a leading position among mobile consumers and the investment underscores Aspex’s confidence that the Toss team will transform the company into a fully integrated consumer financial services platform.

Viva Republica CEO SG Lee said the company will continue to do its best for Toss to become the sole service provider that users need for their financial lives.

“Our mission is to provide the best possible financial service experience to users, and we will continue to do our best for Toss to become the only service needed for users’ safe and easy day-to-day financial lives,” said Lee.