Sri Lanka’s first “Buy Now, Pay Later”, Mintpay closes Rs. 51.5 m in Seed Funding

The team at Mintpay 

The Sri Lankan Buy Now, Pay Later start up, Mintpay that emerged in the latter stage of 2020 has been steadily gaining momentum island-wide as more and more consumers have begun integrating the Mintpay platform into their own financial routine when shopping online. 

The secured funds will be utilised to further improve the technology, roll out new products and hire talent. 

At present, there are over 160+ leading merchants active on the platform, and products ranging from fashion, health and fitness, beauty products, jewellery to pet care are now available for Mintpay members. 

Over the past 17 months, Mintpay has consistently been able to drive immense value to the overall revenue of its merchant partners and unprecedented payment flexibility to its B2C user base, with the recently concluded seed funding round being a testament to the potential for further growth in Sri Lanka.

“The general consensus is that Sri Lanka is a laggard with regards to the adoption of new technologies. However, we were determined to prove that this is far from true, and that Sri Lanka is a place where new and novel technologies can be built and taken to the regional, and global stage,” affirms Mintpay co-founder Urmila Chandrasekaran.

The seed funding for Mintpay is backed by 9 investors while the debt financing is extended by Seylan Bank. 

The engaged parties in the funding round involved distinguished members such as Citi Bank London former Managing Director Bernard Sinniah and Afterpay ex-Growth Marketing Director Suranga Priyashantha was also a part of this round. This cohort was also accompanied by the Lanka Angel Network and nVentures, a Singapore based venture capital company.

When taking a closer look at the unique infrastructure of the Mintpay services, an indispensable value proposition for anyone searching to invest in the product is revealed. 

“We were able to disrupt the norm and develop an alternative credit decisioning system, without having to rely on any third-parties. We will continue to invest in technology and roll out new products and features,” revealed Mintpay co-founder Kukaraj Tharmasegaram. 

The proprietary technological stack that has been implemented within the Mintpay architecture is ground-breaking for the Sri Lanka finance ecosystem with its ability to actively make decisions based on the ‘creditworthiness’ of a user. 

These conditions combine to bestow Mintpay with a significant competitive advantage particularly when taking into consideration the decisioning engine. 

Mintpay, with the closing of its seed funding round, plans on deploying more resources towards the enhancement of the robustness of their technology stack so that it is able to scale up as the business continues to grow. 

The wealth of experience that exists within this overall group of investors in the seed round is bound to augment the efforts undertaken by the Mintpay team and help them break down doors as they look to transform the nation’s payment ecosystem and reach new heights in the coming years.