Analysis
Salmon Group, a Manila-based financial services holding company, said Monday it secured an additional $140 million -- about PHP 8.8 billion -- to expand its banking and lending business across the Philippines, according to the company's announcement on PR Newswire.
The raise splits into $90 million in financing committed by Spice Expeditions, WashU and Moore, plus $50 million in bond proceeds.
“The raise splits into $90 million in financing committed by Spice Expeditions, WashU and Moore, plus $50 million in bond proceeds.”
Founded in July 2022 by Pavel Fedorov, George Chesakov and Raffy Montemayor, Salmon operates two licensed entities: Salmon Bank (Rural Bank) Inc., licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and Salmon Finance Inc., an SEC-licensed financing company. The company says its app has been downloaded 9 million times with a 4.8 rating on the App Store and Google Play, and that its AI-powered credit engine underwrites customers with limited credit history within minutes -- a bet on serving borrowers that traditional Philippine banks often turn away.
Salmon's existing backers include the IFC (part of the World Bank Group), Abu Dhabi's ADQ/Lunate, and Antler, alongside unnamed 'leading US venture investors' and 'prominent Filipino investors,' per the release, though Salmon did not disclose prior round amounts or a current valuation. The raise lands alongside a broader pattern of investors looking past the US and Europe this year -- Crunchbase News reported a 26% jump in Latin American startup funding in the same week -- though Southeast Asian fintech funding wasn't part of that report.
The release names new products -- a motorcycle lending line and in-store lending -- as the primary use of proceeds, but doesn't disclose Salmon's current loan book size, default rates, or total funding raised to date, information that would let outside observers judge whether $140 million is a modest extension or a meaningful scale-up. Those gaps are typical of growth-stage fintech raises in markets without the disclosure norms of US venture rounds.