Latin American open banking platform Belvo has raised $43 million in a Series A funding round, according to a company blog post.
The money will be used to accelerate the company’s expansion of its open finance platform in Latin America, the post stated. The company also plans to double the size of its team, and it will be focused on expansion of data enrichment solutions. It will also roll out a bank-to-bank payment initiation offering in Mexico and Brazil.
Among the new investors were Future Positive, the investment vehicle of Fred Blackford and Biz Stone (early investors in Pinterest, Square, Beyond Meat and NotCo); Kibo Ventures (early investors in Flywire, Coverwallet, Clarity.ai and CARTO); and FJ Labs (early investors in Betterment, Checkr and Recargapay), according to the post.
There was also participation from existing investors Kaszek, MAYA Capital, Venture Friends, and Nubank Founder and CEO David Vélez, along with angel investors Rappi Co-Founder and President Sebastián Mejía and Wise Chief Technology Officer Harsh Sinha, the post stated.
Belvo began operating in 2020 and has added more than 60 companies as customers in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, according to the post. Over the last year, the company has added more application programming interface (API) coverage. That has allowed the companies to connect to over 90 percent of personal and business bank accounts in Latin America, along with tax authorities and gig economy platforms like Uber and Rappi.
The pandemic accelerated the open banking initiatives that had already been picking up steam over the past several years in Latin America. PYMNTS reported that a growth in online banking usually comes along with a broader use of online financial tools. Latin America is seeing a higher rate of internet connectivity, although it’s spreading slowly with just 13 percent of Brazil’s population subscribing to internet services. Over 45 million of the nation’s adults don’t have a bank account.
