The next step after PIX? Transfeera bets on open banking to develop B2B financial intelligence solutions

One of the competitive edges of Brazil’s leading food delivery app iFood lies in the volume of restaurants and delivery workers connected to its platform. For all connected links in the chain created by the delivery app, agility is essential. One of the ways to guarantee the security of the solution relies on verifying accounts of restaurants and professionals — the more agile this process is, the lesser the losses.

Interestingly, a startup that was born during a lunch with friends in a restaurant delivered to iFood the solution to its problem of verifying data. The fintech Transfeera performs micro-deposits in the account of iFood‘s partners to ensure that all data is accurate and, thus, correct possible errors.

READ ALSO: As funding rounds soar, Brazilian startups set a record year for M&As

Hence, the delivery company can insert restaurants and employees more quickly and also contributes to the company’s image as it speeds up the payment for its partners.

Intelligence in Financial Services

Founded in 2017 by friends Guilherme Verdasca, Fernando Nunes and Rafael Negherbon, fintech‘s mission is to simplify financial transactions and offer savings to companies that make payments through bank transfers — and today its financial services offer has evolved even further.

“The idea came up during a lunch conversation. I needed to do a low-value bank transfer, but I didn’t want to pay the fee because I thought it was too high. The prototype was a solution for transfers between individuals, which would reduce the cost and simplify the process. However, after participating in an acceleration program, we understood that there was a lack of financial services aimed at companies”, says the CEO of Transfeera, Guilherme Verdasca.

READ ALSO: Top 10 biggest startups funding rounds in Latin America in 2021

Currently, Transfeera offers two solutions: a platform for managing payments and receipts (ContaTransfeera) and a service for validating accounts and documents that prevents erroneous transactions (ContaCerta). The latter serves clients such as B2W, Enjoei, Shopee, in addition to iFood.

With around 360 corporate clients, the startup has already completed more than 6 million payments and validated over 21 million bank accounts. Within this type of transaction, the company invests in data intelligence to stop around 95% of possible frauds.

According to Verdasca, the company’s next step is to expand its solution based on open banking — which involves banking ecosystem integration and data sharing. The startup is part of the Central Bank’s working groups to improve security and develop new products related to the PIX — Brazil’s instant transfer system.

READ ALSO: Brazil’s fintech QueroQuitar raises BRL 15 million to scale debt negotiation platform

Recently, the startup participated in the last two editions of Endeavor’s Scale-Up program and, in 2020, received a round of BRL 3 million, led by Goodz Capital and with the participation of Bossa Nova Investimentos, Honey Island, and Curitiba Angels.

“Last year we more than doubled in size. We received an expressive contribution, we invested in technology and the platform experience. We expect to close [a new funding round] in the first quarter to be able to accelerate our development a lot in 2022”, says Transfeera’s CEO