Golden Gate, Gentree Fund co-lead Philippine fintech firm’s $1.6m seed round

NextPay, a Philippine digital finance platform, has raised US$1.6 million in a seed funding round led by Singapore’s Golden Gate Ventures and local investor Gentree Fund.

Philippine-based investors Kickstart Ventures, Foxmont Capital, First Asia Ventures, and angel investor Lisa Gokongwei also joined the fundraise.

NextPay co-founders Aldrich Tan and Don Pansacola / Photo credit: NextPay

Launched in 2020, NextPay offers centralized customer payment collection, digital invoicing, cash management, and batch payments to any local bank and e-wallet through its platform. It operates on a pay-per-use model with no setup fees to make itself more accessible to growing companies, entrepreneurs, and freelancers.

“We believe that business banking will continue to digitally evolve as the Philippines accelerates its digital transformation initiatives,” said Don Pansacola, co-founder and CEO of NextPay, adding that the company’s goal was to bring “the power of big banks” to small businesses.

The fresh funds will go toward growing NextPay’s suite of services aimed at connecting more micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises to digital banking solutions, according to the firm’s co-founder and chief experience officer, Aldrich Tan. The company will also look to provide corporate cards, loans, and platform integration to aid these smaller businesses.

In April, NextPay graduated from the Y Combinator accelerator program with US$125,000 in pre-seed funding. The fintech firm claims to have processed transactions worth more than US$20 million for over 100 businesses in the Philippines to date.