Nubank Lands $400M To Expand Throughout LATAM

The Brazil-based FinTech Nubank raised $400 million in a Series F round of funding led by TCV, making it the first major Latin American investment by the Menlo Park, California fund. 

Nubank was founded in 2013 as a small startup aimed at giving people control over their financial lives. In this seventh round series F funding, the company raised $400 million and is now the largest “digital bank” in the world, a Nubank press release said. 

Previous contributors also participated in the funding round, including Tencent, DST Global, Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer, Ribbit Capital and Thrive Capital. As with other Nubank investors, this is the first time TCV has invested in a company in Latin America, the release said.

Nubank said it is the fastest-growing FinTech, having doubled its customer base since October 2018. “We now have 12 million people using our products throughout Brazil,” the press release indicated. 

The company will use the funds to accelerate growth in Brazil and enter new countries in Latin America, David Velez, Nubank’s founder and CEO, said in an interview with Reuters. This year, Nubank started operations in Mexico and Argentina.

Nubank, which started out in 2014 with an app-based credit card and rewards program, has expanded its product line to include personal loans and digital savings accounts for regular consumers and similar products for SMEs and microbusinesses. 

“We remain firm in our commitment to fight complexity and give back to people the control of their finances,” Velez said in the release. 

Small business banking appears to be the bank’s next frontier amid rising competition for SMB and entrepreneur financial services. Reports pointed to PagSeguro Digital and MercadoLibre as two industry rivals that have launched their own checking account products designed for small businesses in the country.

Nubank has raised a total of $420 million across seven financing rounds. Last year, Tencent placed $180 million in the company in a round that drove Nubank’s valuation up to $4 billion at the time, making it among the most highly-valued private startups in Latin America. The investment also marked Tencent’s first entrance in Brazil.