Born from a legacy business, upcycled nylon, and a passion for color. Today, Carry OM has an entire community of 'ommies' who carry the brand’s vision with them all around the metro. Carry OM is living proof of what happens when you combine a strong core identity with the right business operations.
A Bag We Love
“We didn’t have all the business plans in place. We weren’t even solving a problem to begin with. We just wanted to make a bag that we love.”
Dhanvan’s father had run a bag brand called Khumbmela in the 80s through the 2000s–a label that an entire generation of Filipinos grew up with. When the business slowed and eventually stopped, it left behind rolls of nylon fabric.
Viktoria’s creative background started in professional industrial design and continued with makeup, where her expertise in color expanded. These experiences led to her first design for Carry OM–a compact crossbody in a colorway that felt unmistakably her.
“Her love for makeup is her love letter to color,” Dhanvan explains. “Now she can see it not just on her face — she can wear it, carry it, design it.”
Business experience. A source of high-grade, durable material. A creative background with attention to detail and design. Just like that, Dhanvan and Viktoria had all the tools they needed to begin.
Behind the Bags
Carry OM is not just another homegrown Filipino brand.
The name itself carries meaning.
“OM” comes from Dhanvan’s Hindu background — representing vibration, the universal hum. Through the lens of the brand, their interpretation became:
“Carry colorful vibrations with Carry OM.”
It’s a simple phrase, but the depth behind it—cultural identity, energy, and the idea that what you carry says something about who you are—runs through every product decision.
But they don’t lead with philosophy. They lead with the product.
“We just create really great products in the way that we want to do it,” Dhanvan says. “Our IG bio now says: bags done our way. We just want bags that we would want to carry.”
That authenticity has built what Dhanvan calls a cult of community. This consists of their customers, or “ommies,” who carry the brand’s cause, show up to pop-ups, and spread the word about Carry OM within their own circles.
Nostalgia for Nylon
Among all the customer feedback Carry OM receives, one kind stands out.
The conversation starts when a customer picks up a bag, asking how and where it’s made. They would then express genuine delight over learning it’s from the same maker as Khumbmela , praising how well it was crafted. This realization typically catalysed these customers sharing their own stories about the predecessor brand.
The bag their mother carried in high school. The one passed down to a daughter, then a granddaughter, still intact decades later.
“You see them light up with so much joy, happiness, enthusiasm, and nostalgia,” Dhanvan says. “It gives me goosebumps when customers share those stories in person.”
The grade of nylon originating from Khumbmela bags brings a sense of legacy and longevity to Carry OM that align with its thoughtful craftsmanship.
Today, Carry OM is also sourced from large manufacturing companies that would otherwise discard, or burn, leftover fabric too small for mass production. It takes what others throw away and transforms it into products designed to inspire the next generation of stories.
How PayMongo Became Part of the Infrastructure
Dhanvan’s relationship with PayMongo didn’t start with Carry OM.
It started years earlier, when COVID forced his restaurant, Cosmic, business to shift online. He built a Shopify store and needed a payment platform. PayMongo was the most straightforward option given the local registration requirements.
So when Carry OM launched, PayMongo became a natural choice.
Later came the email about PayMongo Capital, the fund-loaning product PayMongo provides its merchants to facilitate growth.
“I discussed it with Viktoria, we looked at the rates, saw that they made sense — and we took our first loan,” Dhanvan recalls.
“I think it was around ₱350,000. Then we took another ₱800,000. Now we’re at our third round, and any chance there’s an offer, we take it.”
At first, the use case was simple: inventory. Because Carry OM’s materials are sourced from upcycled nylon suppliers, purchases are often bulk-or-nothing. Having capital available meant being able to say yes immediately when materials became available.
But the bigger unlock was to use the funds for advertising.
“Since our only way of repaying the capital is through online sales — not through external factors — I had to dedicate a portion of it to our ads chest. How much of a budget can I allocate? How can I predict our sales moving forward?”
The structure of PayMongo Capital, repayments tied directly to online sales, made aggressive ad spending feel manageable.
The risk was bounded, the returns measurable, and the results followed.
Today, Carry OM’s online sales significantly outperform all of their physical retail locations combined.
Beyond Capital, Dhanvan also uses the PayMongo dashboard as a full disbursement system to pay suppliers in bulk and salaries without having to manually transfer.
“There’s no other platform like it that allows me to send InstaPay in bulk,” he says. “When I saw there was a capability to upload an Excel file for disbursement — for suppliers and salaries — that was really helpful.”
For a fast-growing team operating with lean overhead, that kind of operational simplicity compounds over time.
Growing Together
PayMongo Capital exists because growing businesses have real capital needs that traditional lending wasn’t built for.
Waiting months for bank approval while inventory opportunities disappear isn’t realistic for businesses moving at Carry OM’s pace.
The product was designed around how SMEs actually operate:
- Repayments tied to online sales
- No rigid monthly fixed payments
- Flexibility during slower months
- Faster repayment during growth periods
Carry OM is exactly the type of merchant the product was built for:
- A clear market
- Real revenue
- A capital need tied directly to growth
- Founders who know how to deploy capital effectively
From payment acceptance, to bulk disbursements, to Capital—the relationship between Carry OM and PayMongo expanded because the business itself kept expanding. That’s the philosophy behind how PayMongo builds: not as a one-time product sale, but as infrastructure that grows with the merchant.
Dhanvan put it simply when talking to fellow entrepreneurs in his local makers community:
“Have you ever heard of PayMongo Capital? Use that to the best of your abilities—and then they’re going to reward you with capital that your business is in need of.”
What’s Next?
In the next three to five years, Dhanvan and Viktoria aim to scale Carry OM globally.
“We’re already seeing it,” Dhanvan says. “It’s just a matter of magnifying it in a way that’s manageable and scalable.”
In all that they do next, Carry OM’s philosophy remains at the core–using what they have, whether it be raw materials or operational tools, to the fullest to take them through whatever comes next.
Visit https://www.carryom.com/ to explore Carry OM’s full product line.
To learn more about PayMongo Capital, visit https://www.paymongo.com/ and discover PayMongo’s suite of financial tools for growing businesses.
Carry OM is a PayMongo merchant and PayMongo Capital borrower based in the Philippines.