a55, a Brazilian fintech that provides credit lines to startups, boostLAB, the investment bank BTG Pactual‘s hub focused on technology companies and Empirica, an asset management platform, got together to launch a BRL 250 million credit line aimed at startups seeking credit to speed up their operations.
The proposal is to finance technology-based and early-stage companies that need working capital to develop their businesses. The focus will be recurring revenue companies, such as subscription model, SaaS (Software as a Service) and e-commerce, among others. The loans will start at BRL 20,000 and may reach BRL 2 million. The credit line may include between 200 and 300 companies.
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According to André Wetter, a55’s president, the partnership was designed to enable credit granting to technology-based companies in a more customized way than traditional credit solutions. “These companies are growing at an exponential speed and they need credit to make this growth viable, boosting the innovation” he explains.
The credit line was made possible through a Credit Rights Investment Fund (FIDC in Portuguese, a financial solution widely used in Brazilian credit markets) structured by Empirica, which currently manages more than 40 private credit funds in the market, many of them FIDCs in partnership with fintechs.
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In this arrangement, a55 will lead the searching for the companies, analyzing credit and monitoring the loans payment, all done within its own solution – fintech has already lent more than BRL 200 million to companies in Brazil and Mexico. And boostLAB will provide funding, advancing its strategy of positioning BTG Pactual as the “bank for startups”.
