Bogota-based payments startup Minka has raised a $24 million Series A funding round co-led by Tiger Global Management and Kaszek. Minka is a financial services cloud on a mission to improve the way people interact with money.
In interview with Mary-Ann Azevedo from TechCrunch, CEO and co-founder Domagoj Rozic described Minka as “a seamless payment network built from the ground up. The network was designed to connect separate legacy systems through blockchain concepts and APIs “to simplify the movement of complex money flows.”
The fintech partnered with ACH Colombia to work on The Transfiya project, which includes direct read and write API access to 80% of the accounts in the country. This makes Minka the largest open banking project in the region.
Currently, nearly two million people use the project to send money using only a phone number. Minka already has 20 financial institutions and fintechs directly connected to its platform, with another 20 in the process of integration. Also, they have seen a 20% month over month increase in transactions throughout 2022, which has led to year-over-year growth of 250%, according to Rozic.
With this round of funding, Minka aims to “modernize” the infrastructure of clearinghouses and central banks in Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. The startup has immediate plans to expand to the Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Mexico.
To date, Minka has 30 employees distributed between Croatia and Colombia. In total, they have raised $27.5 million.