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Silicon Valley VCs Boost South Korean Fintech Toss to Unicorn Status

Jake MartinbyJake Martin
December 10, 2018
in Uncategorized
Reading Time: 3 mins read
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Viva Republica, the operator behind digital wallet Toss, became South Korea’s latest unicorn after an influx of $80 million announced this week put the valuation of the company at $1.2 billion. The Seoul-based startup’s latest round of funding, led by Silicon Valley VCs Kleiner Perkins and Ribbit Capital, comes as it prepares an expansion into new financial frontiers that could include online stock trading.

Toss, which launched in 2015 as a peer-to-peer money transfer app by CEO and founder (and former dentist) SeungGun Lee, has expanded into various financial services such as credit score management, insurance and real estate micro-investing. It now has ambitions to become a securities broker.

Toss stresses simplicity in financial services. Lee has said that before Toss, users “required five passwords and around 37 clicks to transfer $10. With Toss, users need just 1 password and three steps to transfer up to KRW 500,000 ($430).”

The deal comes just months after Viva Republica reeled in $40 million from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and Sequoia China to accelerate growth. The company has now raised nearly $200 million from investors.

This marks the first investment in a Korean startup for both Kleiner Perkins and Ribbit Capital. Existing backers such as Altos Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, PayPal and Qualcomm Ventures also jumped in on the latest financing round.

“We’re excited to be part of one of the fastest growing fintech company we have seen globally,” Nikolay Kostov, Partner at Ribbit Capital, said in a release. “As an investor focused on fintech, we believe Toss has significant possibilities ahead for growth and profitability, particularly when comparing Toss to other global fintech players and seeing the size of Korea’s financial market. We look forward to Toss’ next phase with us.”

Viva Republica was No. 35 on KPMG’s list of top 100 fintech companies in 2017, just behind bitcoin wallet and vault Xapo, at 34, and beating out companies like digital currency exchange Coinbase, at 40, and investing app Robinhood, at 50, all of which happen to be Ribbit Capital-backed.

Ribbit Capital was named the top investor in CB Insight’s Fintech 250 report, released in October, as the VC had already backed new 2018 unicorns Nubank, Revolut, and PolicyBazaar, as well as several existing unicorns.

Ribbit Capital has also poured money into Cross River Bank, a New Jersey-based community bank that is powering some of the most well known fintech startups in the U.S. The bank announced last week it secured $100 million in a round of funding led by private equity firm KKR & Co., with Ribbit Capital contributing some additional funding.

Kleiner Perkins, an early investor in Google and Amazon, may not be as zeroed in on fintech as Ribbit Capital, but the firm has still made investments in big and emerging names in the space such as Square and Stripe.

Tags: AmazonCB InsightsCoinbaseCross River BankExclusiveGoogleKKRKleiner PerkinsKPMGNubankPayPalPremiumrevolutRibbit CapitalRobinhoodSquarestartupsStripeTossXapo
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