Colombian FinTech Bold Raises $55M

Colombian FinTech Bold has raised $55 million in a Series B round led by Tiger Global Management, the Bogota-based company announced in a news release Thursday (Feb. 3).

Bold says it plans to use the funds to expand its offerings into adjacent financial services for merchants, including lending, deposit accounts, debit and credit cards and capital financing. The company also hopes to speed up its geographic expansion and hire new talent.

Founded in 2019, Bold is an independent merchant acquirer that aims to promote financial inclusion by expanding its country’s digital payments ecosystem.

Serving small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Bold lets merchants enroll in just five minutes — compared to what it says is an average of 15 days with legacy banks — and offers “low-cost payment terminals that enable businesses to accept link payments and other local payment methods, with no monthly point-of-sale fees.”

Since its 2019 launch, Bold has scaled to more than 380 employees and welcomed more than 100,000 acquired merchants.

“In Colombia, where cash still represents more than 80% of transaction volume, versus 35% in Brazil and 30% in the United States, Bold is laying critical groundwork for small businesses to begin expanding their customer bases and entering the next generation of payments,” the company news release said.

Learn more: Cash No Longer King in Latin America

That’s not to say digital payments have been completely shunned in Colombia. As PYMNTS reported last year, the country’s digital banking space grew by 59% between 2019 and 2020.

During the pandemic, digital wallets and contactless payments became many customers’ sole option for accessing products and services, Kushki Chief Revenue Officer Madeleine Clavijo said in an interview with PYMNTS.

As businesses closed brick-and-mortar locations, consumers’ embrace of digital payment methods began to grow in Colombia and the rest of Latin America.

“Therefore, cash lost its relevance,” noted Clavijo.

Research conducted by PYMNTS last year in partnership with Kushki found that cash transactions totaled 80% of payments in Latin America in 2018. Fast-forward two years to the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that figure had dropped to mere 25% across Latin America.