FinanZero, a Brazilian marketplace focused on consumer loans, announced on Monday that it has raised a $ 7 million round led by the Swedish investors VEF, Dunross & Co, and Atlant Fonder. All of them were already investors in the company.
Proceeds of its fourth round of funding will primarily go towards marketing, and hiring new talents, as told by Olle Widén, CEO of FinanZero
FinanZero has currently 52 employees. “We will use 70% [of the proceeds] in marketing strategies, and then hire more programmers, expanding the team,” said Widén.
The marketing strategy goes from sponsoring soccer teams and Stock Car to long-term contracts with major Brazilian OTA (over-the-air) broadcasters Globo, Record, SBT, and Band.
“We really like the strategy of being Brazil’s top of mind. We have evidences that we are the number one credit marketplace [in Brazil].”
Independent broker for personal loans, car and home equity
Headquartered in São Paulo, FinanZero was founded in 2016 by Swedish-Brazilian investment firm Webrock Ventures and Swedish entrepreneurs Olle Widén and Kristian Jakobsson. Since then, the fintech has raised $22.85 million. Widén doesn’t disclose the current firm’s valuation, but says that “in Brazilian reais, it doubled down its valuation in two years since the last round.”
FinanZero operates as an independent broker for personal loans, car and home equity. It negotiates the customer’s loan with several banks and credit institutions to find the loan with the best interest rate and conditions for each customer.
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“Right now we are launching a 27th bank partner, and we want to integrate more banks. We signed 11 new partners during the pandemic,” added Widén.
Counting banks and financial institutions, FinanZero has more than 50 lending partners and has seen the volume of credit applications on its platform grow in the pandemic, with an average of 750,000 applications per month. “We see a strong momentum for banks becoming more digital.”
The next big step for FinanZero will probably be towards the end of 2022, according to the CEO. It could be an IPO or a larger money round. Widén talks and says the company has no concrete plans for an IPO, but it is a possibility to most likely go public in the Brazilian stock exchange B3.
