Ademar Proença, COO at Hash. Photo: Hash/Courtesy

Six months after Series B, Brazil's Hash puts another $40 million in its pocket

QED Investors and Kaszek lead Series C round in the payments infrastructure fintech

20.Oct.2021 07:00 BRT
UPDATED 14:12 BRT

On Wednesday, Brazil-based payments infrastructure fintech Hash announced that it has secured a $40 million funding round from QED Investors and Kaszek, with participation from Endeavor Scale-Up Ventures.

The QED Investors fund had already led a $15 million round in the startup in April this year. To LABS, the fintech’s COO, Ademar Proença, said that since Series B, the company “has had a lot of visibility” and has doubled the number of corporate clients – from eight to 16 – as well as increased the number of transactions by six times since April.

“With these opportunities come new needs for hiring staff, investment in infrastructure, and innovation. The opportunity arose to close this C round to continue accelerating this growth and ensure that we will not have any slowdown throughout the process, that we will capture all opportunities,” said Proença.

With the capital, Hash intends to hire employees for the technology team. Today, the startup has 170 employees and aims to reach 190 by the end of the year.

Santiago Fossatti, a partner at Kaszek, said in a press release, that “Hash can occupy an important space in the payments industry and become a reference in Latin America.”

Founded in 2017, Hash offers banking infrastructure for other companies, allowing companies from different industries to provide financial services to their customers, including payments via apps and POS terminals, all closely monitored by control panels.

In the last year, the fintech company has grown tenfold in the volume of transactions in POS and intends to reach the BRL 1.5 billion mark in the total volume of payments by the end of 2021. The startup also plans to make digital accounts available to corporate clients.

Hash’s clients include everything from retail companies (such as Leo Madeiras) to wellness companies, pharmaceuticals, and neobanks. “Our goal is to close this year with 20 clients, i.e., bring in four more,” says Proença.

For next year, the goal is more ambitious: Hash wants to reach 40 clients by the end of 2022. And to achieve this, the company – which is among the top six Brazilian fintechs in the CB Insights 2021 list – bets on customizing the product for each client.

“We understand the market’s demand to have support when it comes to implementing a payment solution. Our clients are very specialized in what they do but do not necessarily understand the payments market. We have built a team to provide all this support. The client can count on our onboarding team, which differentiates us from the generic solutions that exist today,” said Proença.

Hash intends to compete in the infrastructure market, which in Brazil already counts with Zoop, from Movile group, and the Argentine newcomer Pomelo, which received a $1 million investment from Sequoia in July.

The entire cost of Hash’s operation is included in the transaction fee. According to Proença, the fintech seeks to bring volume to be competitive in the market.

“With the volume, we can have the bargain to negotiate more competitive rates,” he said. The rates vary according to the operations of customers, debit or credit, for example. “We will decentralize the financial market, which is highly concentrated and has generic solutions. If companies add payments to their customers, they can do more business because there is more visibility into the data and financial health of customers,” recalled the COO.

Proença also said that the company had noticed a greater movement of customers wanting to bring in this solution of POS with the easing of the COVID-19 restriction measures. “When the world was in a more restrictive pandemic, companies were more concerned on other fronts, but now with the world returning [to normal], there is an acceleration and interest to participate in this market.”