First Circle is a Philippine fintech startup. Regulatory filings show the company has raised $8.6 million in fresh equity as part of a Series B round. The Series B is described in reporting as IFC-backed. The funding was disclosed via regulatory filings and characterized as equity. The article does not provide details on the company’s product, operating metrics, or use of proceeds. No additional investors or past rounds are named in the report. First Circle offers short-term, transaction and working-capital loans to Philippine small and medium enterprises, helping them bridge 90–120 day cash-flow gaps. The company sources capital from third parties including asset managers and family offices, and it invests in every deal while sharing risk with its investors. First Circle has processed over $100 million in deals to “thousands” of businesses; typical customer loan requests are around $10,000 and average account balances are about $30,000 (roughly three active loans per borrower). Because the Philippines lacks a formal credit-scoring system, the startup has built proprietary underwriting and increasingly automated approvals as its dataset grows. Founders are CEO Patrick Lynch and CTO Tony Ennis. First Circle plans regional expansion in Southeast Asia and intends to use this financing to potentially enter a second market, while likely raising additional capital next year to accelerate that push. First Circle is a fintech platform focused on SME lending in the Philippines, aiming to make credit more accessible to less-established companies. It shortens traditional loan wait times from about a month to days and simplifies the paperwork involved. The company uses alternative information such as customer numbers and transaction flows—particularly for e-commerce sellers affiliated with Lazada—to underwrite loans. Typical loans are around $10,000 with roughly three-month payback terms; to date it has paid out over $5 million in loans. Loans are underwritten by a credit pool supplied by asset managers and family offices, who take more than half of earnings from the loan book. Founded in 2015, First Circle remains focused on the Philippines while evaluating potential expansion to Indonesia and Thailand and is targeting a Series A by the end of the year.

Total raised

$36M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Aug 2024