Negócios

Fintech Creditas secures $260M round, valuation reaches $4.8B

Fidelity led the round that nearly trebled Creditas' valuation, bringing it closer to an IPO in the year it turns 10

logo da creditas
Foto: Divulgação

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Brazilian secured lending startup Creditas has published the news of its latest funding round in its investor relations area today (25). The $260 million Series F round values the fintech at $4.8 billion. That’s nearly a three-fold increase in relation to the $1.75 billion valuation the company had received in its Series E round towards the end of 2020.

Startups had previously reported the news that Creditas was in the process of raising a new round when VEF, one of the fintech’s main investors, announced that it had committed USD 25 million to the firm’s new round.

Creditas’ latest fundraising effort would be a pre-IPO round, whereby investors will be expecting Creditas to go public with a $10 billion valuation, according to Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico. Yesterday, Pitchbook published a list of 21 Latin startups large enough to go public – and Creditas is one of them.

The Series F round was led by Fidelity, in another indication of the startup’s plans for an IPO. Spanish fintech-focused fund Actyus and UK firm Greentrail Capital also joined the round as new backers. Existing investors QED Investors, VEF, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, SoftBank Latin America Fund, Kaszek Ventures, Lightrock, Headline, Wellington Management and Advent International (through its subsidiary Sunley House Capital) also joined the round. Considering the latest capital injection, Creditas has raised $854 million in its decade-long history, according to Crunchbase data.

“We have significant growth ahead in different avenues, including financial solutions for our innovative Creditas Auto marketplaces, Creditas Store (a buy-now-pay-later e-commerce platform with payroll debit) and Voltz (the largest electric motorcycle manufacturer in Brazil). In addition to Brazil, we are now accelerating our growth in Mexico, a market in which, after 18 months of operation, has proven to be a strategic engine for growth. We believe that Creditas can become a real disruptor in the Mexican market by being able to democratize access to financial products and consumer solutions,” said Creditas CEO and founder Sergio Furio, in a statement.

The São Paulo-headquartered fintech has invested heavily in diversifying its operations. Between July and September 2021, it incorporated the operations of the insurance company Minuto Seguros and Volanty. The two businesses added 15 million Brazilian reais ($2.7 million) to Q3 revenues – without these operations, the firm would have grown 213%. Also last year, Creditas announced a distribution agreement with Nubank, in which the neobank became a shareholder in the company, with a stake of up to 7.7%.

Third quarter revenues at Creditas rose by more than 230%, reaching BRL 257.1 million (USD 46.7 million), against 77.3 million Brazilian reais ($14 million) in the same period of 2020. On the other hand, the company continues to report losses, which almost doubled to BRL 81.2 million (USD 14.7 million) in Q3, against 45.3 million Brazilian reais ($8.2 million) in the same period a year earlier.

(translation by Angelica Mari)