Brazilian FinTech Nubank Raises $400 Million, Expanding In Latin America

Brazilian FinTech Nubank raised $400 million in a Series G funding round led by Singapore’s GIC, Whale Rock and Invesco, Nubank said in a Thursday (Jan. 28) blog post. 

Also participating in the round were previous investors Tencent, Dragoneer, Ribbit Capital and Sequoia. Nubank’s total funding to date is $1.2 billion, with a valuation of $25 billion, up from $10 billion in 2019, TechCrunch reported.

Nubank said that since its last investment round in July 2019, “we have almost tripled the number of users in Brazil — from 12 million to 34 million people.” The company also launched new products, expanded in Latin America and made three important acquisitions — PlataformaTec, Cognitect and Easynvest, according to the blog. 

Founded in 2013 by Adam Edward Wible, Cristina Junqueira and David Velez, Nubank is now the world’s biggest independent digital bank in terms of the number of customers. It is also among the five most valuable financial institutions in Latin America.

The new funds will be used for new investments in Brazil and advancing operations in Mexico and Colombia. About half of the population in Latin American is unbanked and legacy banks control more than 70 percent of the market. 

“We helped the financial inclusion of millions of people — about 20 percent of our customers had never had a credit card before Nubank.”

In a PYMNTS interview, Nubank CEO and Co-Founder David Vélez said that when the company moves into a new market, it rolls out a credit card as its first product, and follows up with debit offerings later. By issuing credit cards first, it’s easier for customers to ease into using a digital-only bank. Most of Nubanks’ customers switch to debit once they become more comfortable.

Nubank is poised to turn a profit, as is India’s Paytm, due to the pandemic-fueled demand for digital banking services. Nubank Co-Founder Cristina Junqueira said the health crisis encouraged many Brazilians to jump into online banking for the first time, particularly to receive government stimulus payments.