Korean unicorn startup Viva Republica (Toss) Raises $64 Million At $2.2 Billion Valuation

Viva Republica, Korea’s prominent FinTech startup and maker of mobile financial services platform Toss, announced on August 8, that it has secured a $64 million fundraising at a $2.2 billion valuation led by Hong Kong-based Asian equity investment firm Aspex Management along with returning investors. This funding round will bring the total raised to date to about $250 million.

This is the first investment in a private company by Aspex Management, an Asian equity investment firm founded in 2018 investing across the public and private equity markets. Toss’ existing investors participating in this round include Kleiner Perkins, Altos Ventures, Goodwater Capital, GIC, Sequoia Capital China, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Since its launch in 2015 as a simple and frictionless P2P(peer-to-peer) money transfer service, Toss has evolved into a platform providing a full suite of financial services all in one app, ranging from money transfer service and a dashboard allowing users to view bank and credit/debit card transactions, manage their credit score, loan and insurance plans, and various investment services, touching on every facet of users’ daily financial lives.

To date, Toss has been downloaded more than 30 million times and has over 13 million registered users, more than a fifth of the population. With $42+ billion of transactions processed, Toss has established itself as a must-have financial services app.

“We like the large addressable market financial services offer and the unique leading position Toss occupies amongst mobile consumers,” said Hermes Li, founder and CIO of Aspex Management. “We are confident that the exceptional Toss team will solidify the company into a fully integrated consumer financial services platform.”

“We are truly pleased that Toss has gained further momentum to embark upon the next phase of its journey. 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 SG Lee, CEO of Viva Republica.

About Viva Republica

Founded in 2013, Viva Republica launched a simple and frictionless P2P money transfer service Toss in 2015. The platform has become one of the world’s fastest-growing financial apps, with $42+ billion of cumulative transactions. Complementing its P2P money transfer and payments system, Toss now delivers a full suite of financial services including banking services, financial dashboard, credit score management, and investment products. The company was ranked 28th in KPMG’s 2018 Fintech 100. Based in Seoul, Viva Republica is backed by many high profile global investors including Kleiner Perkins, Altos Ventures, Goodwater Capital, PayPal, GIC, Sequoia China, Bessemer Venture Partners, Ribbit Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and others.

About Aspex Management

Aspex Management is a Hong Kong-based Asian equity investment firm founded in 2018. Aspex was founded by Hermes Li together with a team of experienced investment professionals with a successful track record investing across Asia. Prior to founding Aspex Management, Mr. Li was an Executive Managing Director for Och-Ziff Management, one of the largest alternative asset managers globally, and led their public and private equities investing effort in Asia. Aspex employs a research-intensive, fundamentally-driven approach to construct the investment portfolio through a bottom-up security selection process. It looks to invest in industries and companies exposed to large addressable markets with long term potential, as well as companies undergoing structural changes.