Salmon Group adds $140 million for Philippine lending
Salmon Group added $140 million for Philippine lending: $90 million committed by existing backers and $50 million of bond proceeds. No valuation was disclosed.
Salmon Group's new money for Philippine lending is not a priced venture round, and the company published no valuation. On October 19, 2026, Salmon Group said it had secured an additional $140 million, presented as PHP 8.8 billion. The release divides that into $90 million of financing committed by Spice Expeditions, WashU and Moore, and $50 million of bond proceeds. DealStreetAsia named Spice Expeditions, Washington University Investment Management Company, Moore Strategic Ventures and other existing backers, called the $50 million a public bond, and reported a spokesperson's line that this was a fresh round.
The useful comparison is Salmon Group's April 20, 2026 financing of $100 million. That package was $60 million of equity, led by Spice Expeditions and Washington University Investment Management Company, with Moore Strategic Ventures, FJ Labs, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and other existing investors, plus $40 million of public bonds at 102% of par, a 13.7% effective yield. The October total is larger, and the October documents are thinner. Neither the new release nor DealStreetAsia gives a bond price, a yield, or any statement that the $90 million is equity.
What the $140 million funds
Salmon Group said the proceeds will scale two books it calls profitable, the Salmon Credit Line and in-store lending, and fund a nationwide launch of motorcycle loans and lending to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). The release sets no origination target and no timetable. For Philippine lending, the operating plan is a product list.
Two licensed companies sit under the group. DealStreetAsia reported that Salmon Bank (Rural Bank) Inc. is licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and that Salmon Finance Inc. is a financing company licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The release describes Salmon Finance as the financing arm, with an artificial intelligence (AI) credit engine that can clear thin credit files in minutes.
The release also states company figures for the app: nine million downloads, a 4.8 rating on the App Store and on Google Play, 99.9% uptime and dedicated 24/7 customer support. Pavel Fedorov, George Chesakov and Raffy Montemayor founded Salmon Group in July 2022.
No comment from the regulator or named rivals
Readers of the wire, the Manila Times reprint, DealStreetAsia and Fintech Global's October 20, 2026 story will not find a comment from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Maya, GCash or Tonik. Fintech Global reported a further $140 million and the product plan, and it did not publish the $90 million and $50 million split. That silence is not a clearance.
The bond book behind the commitment
Salmon Group's June 17, 2025 release said Spice Expeditions, LP led $28 million of new equity beside a $60 million drawdown on a new three-year, $150 million Nordic bond framework, and described the firm as founded in 2024 by Nick Huber, previously a partner at Ribbit Capital. IFC and Abu Dhabi's ADQ/Lunate were already shareholders. On September 29, 2025 the company said a further $50 million Nordic bond, oversubscribed twice over, had lifted total bond financing to $110 million under that framework, with Pareto Securities as sole bookrunner and underwriter.
The September 2025 total of $110 million plus the April 2026 public bond of $40 million is $150 million, equal to the Nordic framework cap, if that April bond was a draw under the framework. Salmon Group has not said that it was. The October 19 release also does not say whether the new $50 million of bond proceeds sits inside the framework, and it names no bookrunner.
Other specialty lenders already separate a growth round from receivables funding. Homeward paired a Series D with a debt line, and Octane lined up a powersports facility, the nearest parallel to motorcycle loans. NeoGrowth raised MSME capital from FMO and LeapFrog. Salmon Group is using a public bond, which works only if the new loans perform like the books it already calls profitable.
"We are doubling down on the opportunity in the Philippines as we believe deeply in its scale and in the importance of focus to deliver a differentiated execution," Pavel Fedorov, co-founder of Salmon, said in the October 19 release. In the April release he said "a significant share of equity raised will be deployed to further enhance the capital base of our subsidiary bank, Salmon Bank (Rural Bank)". He did not say that about the new $90 million.
Motorcycle and MSME loans, the new Philippine lending products in the release, have to be booked before anyone can test demand near the 13.7% effective yield Salmon Group published in April 2026. If the next bond again omits a coupon, a bookrunner and any capital passed to Salmon Bank (Rural Bank) Inc., outsiders will still be looking at $90 million of commitments plus $50 million of bond proceeds. That sum does not mark a valuation.
Reporting by Rick Steves. Filed 21 October 2026, 20:47 GMT.
Senior Reporter, Regulation and Fintech
Rick Steves has seen business and economics through many lenses. He joined the financial services industry in 2009, and has been a financial journalist since 2011.
