SoftBank To Lead $125M Round For LATAM FinTech AlphaCredit

Latin America-based AlphaCredit has signed up for a funding round to raise $125 million, led by SoftBank’s Latin America fund.

AlphaCredit is a FinTech platform with a focus on consumer lending and finance solutions. It provides credit lines to individuals and has usually worked in communities without much access to banks. In Mexico and Colombia, it has loaned more than $1 billion total to various clients. It has utilized a number of services including AXS Access, Check!, Alcanza Capital and Bontu.

As SoftBank’s Latin America fund is one of the leading technology investors in the world, the equity infusion will give AlphaCredit the opportunity to “consolidate its place as one of the leading financial technology platforms” in the region, a press release says.

The deal will be subject to Mexico’s competition authority, COFECE, before it is allowed to go forward.

But AlphaCredit CEOs and co-founders José Luis Orozco and Augusto Álvarez were happy about the opportunity, saying it would give them the chance to keep providing cutting-edge technology for fast, easy and flexible service.

There will be other leading venture capital firms from international waters also joining with SoftBank, though the press release does not list them.

Venture capital firms started 2020 off strong, raising more than $1 billion in fields as varied as B2B payments, payroll and eProcurement.

Among those payments, SoftBank was involved in raising money for robotics and artificial intelligence firm Berkshire Grey, part of a $263 million haul for the company.

SoftBank was also in talks earlier this month as a potential investor in a new Indonesian capital city that the country intends to create on Borneo Island. There wasn’t a figure discussed yet, but SoftBank reportedly said it would be willing to put in as much as $40 billion.

And it was involved in helping to bail out WeWork, though that venture proved to be more than even it could handle.