EBANX, the Brazilian fintech that processes payments for global companies in Latin America and owns LABS, announced this Wednesday it has acquired Remessa Online, a Brazilian international remittance fintech, for $229 million. With the acquisition, EBANX expands its portfolio, while creating a powerhouse for cross-border payments services in the region.
Remessa Online, in its turn, enters a new phase, expanding beyond Brazil. The company, created by Fernando Pavani, Alexandre Liuzzi, and Marcio William in Sao Paulo, is one of the five largest companies regarding the number of remittances registered with the Brazilian Central Bank and accounts for a third of that market in the country.
The $20 million round raised in June last year, led by Kaszek, helped the company reach those marks faster. Between January and April of this year alone, the company grew 94.46% compared to the same period in 2020.
The success with individual customers also led the company to serve small and medium-sized companies, Internet content producers, and technology professionals. By the end of this year, Remessa Online will reach a total payment volume of over $5.2 billion handled since its foundation in 2016.
“Everything that Remessa Online has built during its first five years has focused on delivering the best solutions for customers who want to operate internationally, whether individuals or businesses of all sizes, within a service that combines transparency, efficiency, and a real understanding of their needs. This is completely in line with our mission together with EBANX, to continue transforming the business landscape in Brazil and abroad,” said Fernando Pavani, founder and CEO of Remessa Online.
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The company currently serves more than 350,000 customers and has, more recently, invested in partnerships to grow even more. In July, it announced a collaboration with Nubank to offer its remittance services to the neobank’s more than 48 million customers. At the time, Remessa Online said that it hoped, through the partnership, to reach 1 million customers by the middle of 2022 and a revenue growth of 150% in 2022, the same expected growth rate for 2021.
Remessa Online is EBANX‘s second acquisition. In October, it announced the completion of the purchase of Juno, a Brazilian B2B fintech B2B that provides solutions for digital billing, payments, and a range of banking services. The value of the deal was not disclosed at the time.
The acquisition of Remessa Online also takes place after EBANX raised a mega-round of US$ 430 million led Advent International, and other investments by Lead Edge (via New York Avenue I LLC), Manzat Inversiones, GHS Holding Ltda, and LTS Liquid Investments LLC – and only revealed now.
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“We are excited about the arrival of Remessa Online at this time in EBANX‘s history. We believe that the complementarity of operations will allow us to better serve EBANX customers in Latin America, while at the same time we will be able to accelerate and expand Remessa’s plans”, explains João Del Valle, co-founder and CEO of EBANX.
Adding to this new momentum of EBANX, the acquisition of Remessa Online also comes in a new phase of the remittances market. While regions like Europe and Central Asia experienced modest growth, LatAm and the Caribbean saw the strongest demand, growing by about 21.6% in 2021, according to the World Bank. Remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are forecasted to reach US$ 589 billion by the end of this year, a 7.3% increase over 2020.
