Peppermint Innovation raises $1.1m to boost AI-powered expansion
Philippines-focused fintech Peppermint Innovation (ASX: PIL) has successfully raised $1.102 million to help drive its artificial intelligence (AI)-backed growth strategy.
The new funds were raised in a placement to sophisticated and professional investors via the issue of 73,500,000 fully paid ordinary shares at $0.015 per share.
The new capital will be used to grow Peppermint’s bizmoLoan offering and capitalise on opportunities driven by a new AI and customer experience (CX).
The successful placement reinforces Peppermint’s 2023 strategic acquisition of XPON’s AI and CX business division.
“We believe AI is the single most important technology mega-trend of our generation and we have a clear roadmap to become the most advanced AI-powered lender in the Philippines,” managing director and chief executive officer Chris Kain said.
“The strong support that we received is a significant endorsement of our company strategy, including our most recent acquisition of our new AI and CX business division, Peppermint Intelligence.”
Accelerated growth path
Mr Kain said Peppermint Intelligence has the potential to accelerate the company’s revenue growth in a short space of time.
“By acquiring this established and proven team, Peppermint has been able to leapfrog years of development in building similar capabilities, methodologies, frameworks and outputs from scratch to focus sharply on the company’s business going forward.”
“I look forward to updating the market shortly in relation to our newly-acquired AI and CX business division.”
Strong half year
The completion of the new capital raising came just one day after Peppermint Innovation reported the results of a very strong half year.
Alongside the AI / CX acquisition, other highlights for the period ended December 2023 included a 200% increase in the company’s bizmoLoan gross revenue.
Continued marketing and promotion of the bizmoto platform during the period also attracted more users, totalling more than 80,000 by the end of 2023.
Peppermint also revealed it had secured contracts worth around $365,000 in Q4 2023, with revenues flowing in CY24 and a forecast sales pipeline of approximately $1m.
In a very active six-month period, Peppermint also signed a 5-year strategic partnership agreement to provide MASS-SPECC’s Pinoy Coop Mobile app.
The agreement will see Peppermint deliver end-to-end services for the app via white-labelling the company’s electronic money issuer wallet and mobile application banking and financial services technology platform.
The MASS-SPEC development centre is the Philippines’ oldest and largest regional cooperative.