Colombia-based fintech Minka, a provider of last-mile APIs and shared ledgers for national payment networks, has secured $24 million in capital through a funding round led by Tiger Global and Kaszek.
Minka's technology connects separate legacy systems through blockchain concepts and modern APIs to simplify the movement of money flows.
In Columbia Minka has brought its network to bear on The TransfiYa project, built in partnership with ACH Colombia, providing a direct read and write API access to 80% of the accounts in the country.
Domagoj Rozic, Minka’s CEO states: “We aim to connect the world's balances through the web using shared, connected ledgers. The project in Colombia has proven this is possible and has become one of the fastest-growing real-time payments networks in the region, enabling previously slow money to move instantly and with minimal cost.”
Currently, nearly two million people use the system to send money using only a phone number and soon it will support one-click purchases, payouts and collections.
Kai Schmitz, a partner at Crestone and former Senior Specialist at the World Bank’s Payment Systems Group, says: “Minka creatively uses new technology to upgrade national payment systems for the digital economy. The new investment allows Minka to expand geographically and deploy its platform to other use cases, such as supply chain and other B2B payments.”