In the middle of a “drought” investments For technology companies in the region, Argentine fintech Pomelo announced on Wednesday that it had managed to get back on its feet 40 million dollars in a new round of investments.
This is how the company develops less than three years after its birth infrastructures for the world of cards in Latin America It has already managed to raise $103 million in venture capital funding to leverage its regional expansion.
This is not a trivial fact: after the “boom” of investments towards the region in 2020 and 2021, investments by venture capital funds have deflated in the last two years and in 2023 they will represent only 0.6% of the Global capital went to projects founded or based in Latin America.
Pomelo Series B investment round it was led by Kaszek, the largest venture capital fund in Latin America, founded by two former Mercado Libre. In fact, Nicolas Szekasy, co-founder and managing partner of Kaszek will join the Pomelo board of directors.
This liquidity injection will allow the fintech, founded in 2021 by three executives from Mastecard, Mercado Pago and Naranja X, to break even next year. The company has accelerated its regional expansion in record time: in addition to Argentina, it is already operational in Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Brazil and after this investment it announced the landing in Chile.
In each of these countries, Pomelo offers companies in the financial and other industries the ability to offer prepaid, debit and credit cards to their customers in multiple countries, with a single technology integration and at a fraction of the cost. Its client portfolio includes banks, multinational companies and technology startups such as Rappi, Bitso, Stori, Nomad, Payjoy, Ripio and AstroPay.
“We are very happy to start 2024 with this capital injection and to have the support of Kaszek and many of the most prestigious investment funds globally. This result confirms that we continue to move in the right direction and strengthen our leadership in the region,” said Gaston Irigoyen, co-founder and CEO of Pomelo.
Irigoyen emphasized that the services offered by his company help more and more companies integrate into the financial ecosystem in a dynamic and changing world. In this sense, he stated that, in Argentina, 95% of the market share of the local cryptocurrency industry uses Pomelo infrastructure for its operations and a “moderate optimism” advanced for the economic changes that may come to the credit card business and crypto economy in the Milei era.
In 2023, the company multiplied the volume of payments by seven, reaching a processing capacity of 55 million daily transactions. This has allowed Pomelo to strengthen its strategic alliances with Mastercard and Visa in all countries in which it operates. The company plans to double the size of its business this year.
“Pomelo is leading a new generation of payment infrastructure companies in Latin America and we at Kaszek are very excited to actively support them in this phase of expansion. The company has demonstrated exceptional traction in a very short period of time, confirming the superiority of its technological solution and the great execution ability of this team of entrepreneurs that we have known for years,” commented Szekasy.
Source: Clarin
