Viva Republica Ltd., a company that manages Toss, one of the largest South Korean Fintech firms, is reportedly planning to secure around $200 million in additional funding from investors. This, after acquiring $64 million in August 2019.
The company says the funds will be used to expand its online banking and security trading platforms.
Viva has just begun working on its funding round and aims to finalize it in the next few months, according to Lee Seung-gun, the founder of the company.
Seung-gun did not comment on the expected valuation of the firm following the round.
He told Bloomberg that the company might consider launching an IPO within the next two to three years. It could plan a listing in South Korea, Hong Kong, the US, Seung-gun said.
Established in 2011 and incorporated in 2013, Toss is a leading South Korea-based Fintech firm with approximately 10 million active monthly users.
Toss managed to reach its first break-even month last month. The company claims it is handling 4.5 trillion Korean won (appr. $3.7 billion) worth of transactions per month. This, after processing around 9.2% of the nation’s e-commerce payments last year.
Toss says it may launch a securities brokerage platform during the second half of 2020. Notably, the Fintech firm is also planning to establish an internet bank in July 2021. This could potentially help it capture a large share of Korea’s $43 billion financial market.
Seung-gun, who is also a dentist, remarked:
“At a time like this, a company that grows fast and makes profit will get more money. Our goal is to become a finance super app, making people open Toss for any financial activities without question.”
The Seoul-headquartered firm managed to reduce spending because of new Open Banking laws introduced by the Korean government toward the end of 2019. The new rules helped cut down commission payments to banks to a fraction of what they were previously.
The firm claims its revenue increased 6x in the past couple years.
Seung-gun says he wants Toss to develop an aggregation platform that will bring together services offered by major Fintech giants such as Paypal, Robinhood, and Credit Karma.
Toss currently offers around 40 different services. Most of the firm’s revenue reportedly comes from its funds transfer, credit cards loans and credit rating management, insurance, and investment services.
Toss has secured over $350 million in capital to date, and was recently valued at around $2.4 billion. It’s funded by PayPal Holdings, Goodwater Capital, GIC Pte, Altos Ventures.