Grow Mobility, the micromobility startup formerly known as Grin, merges with payment system Flinto

Grow Mobility, the entity that consists of electric scooter startup Grin, and bike and scooter-share startup Yellow, has merged with payments startup Flinto.

Flinto enables people to make peer-to-peer payments, add minutes and text messages to your phone, and pay bills and merchants. Flinto works for those with or without bank accounts. If someone doesn’t have a bank account, they can deposit cash at local shops and restaurants.

“It started to make a lot of sense to bring Flinto as part of the team to develop the wallet because for Latin America, the wallet is not an add-on,” Grin co-founder Jonathan Lewy told TechCrunch. “It’s a need if you want to tap into a big market of underbanked or non-banked. The only way to bring them on the platform is through a wallet. For us, the wallet is something that we see as the future of the company.”

As part of a merger earlier this year between Grin and Yellow, the new entity rebranded as Grow Mobility. Grow Mobility operates more than 135,000 micromobility vehicles across six countries and plans to more than double its fleet in the next few months across Latin America. Now, Flinto is part of the pack.

That means riders of Grow Mobility’s products will be able to make payments through Flinto. Down the road, the plan is to expand use cases for Flinto within Grow and then phase out the Flinto brand.