South Korean-based Viva Republica has secured $40m in funding from GIC and Sequoia China.
The funding marks GIC’s and Sequoia China’s first investment into a Korean startup company.
Viva Republica is the developer of financial services app Toss, which is a P2P money transfer service. The platform currently has over eight million registered users and an annual transaction run rate of $17bn.
Its mobile app provides money transfer, online payments, a single dashboard for all bank accounts, credit score management, a savings account, a debit card, investment opportunities, and customised loan and insurance recommendation.
The funding is a bridge round and brings the company’s total capital raised to $116m. With the new batch of funding, Viva will look to fund its growth and accelerate product development.
Viva Republica co-founder and CEO SG Lee said, “This bridge round is a strategic investment which will enable us to explore major opportunities such as investments and acquisitions to become the go-to service for all consumer financial needs while providing superb user experience.”
Sequoia has made multiple investments in the FinTech sector over the past year. Earlier in the month, the firm led the $11.4m funding round of life insurance startup Ethos. It has also backed Ant Financial’s colossal $10bn funding round, and Cybersecurity company SafeBreach’s $15m round.
Earlier in the year, fellow South Korea FinTech company Tera Funding netted a $9.3m Series A round, supporting the development of its P2P real estate lending platform.
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