Belvo, an open finance API platform, has raised a $43 million Series A funding round to accelerate its expansion across Latin America. Eyeing this market’s potential, the startup that currently operates in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, wants to expand its presence throughout the region by promoting the digitization of financial services for banks and companies.
The round was led by global investors such as Future Positive, Kibo Ventures and FJLabs and following by business angels including Sebastián Mejía, co-founder and president of Rappi; and Harsh Sinha, CTO of Wise (formerly Transferwise). Existing investors such as Kaszek, MAYA Capital, Venture Friends, and David Vélez, founder and CEO of Nubank, among others, also participated in the round.
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The new funds will help Belvo scale its product offering. The company will focus on expanding its offering of data enrichment solutions across markets and launch its bank-to-bank payment initiation offering in Mexico and Brazil.
According to the startup, Belvo will continue to explore opportunities to expand its open finance platform to new countries within the Latin American market and expects to double its existing financial data providers connection coverage, thus reaching over 80 integrations, by the end of the year.
The new funds will also be used to strengthen the team across functions and locations. Belvo currently employs 70 people and plans to double its headcount by the end of the year. As part of this plan, the company envisages hiring more than 50 engineers in Mexico and Brazil in the upcoming months.
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In order to take advantage of the open banking revolution in the Brazilian banking and financial system, Belvo has approached regulatory bodies, such as the Central Bank, to act as a facilitating agent for companies that will need to adapt and update their portfolios of services and financial products.
Albert Morales, general manager of Belvo in Brazil, said that the startup‘s goal is to become the main partner of fintechs to facilitate the transition to the open banking model. “The new round will help us to expand and to evolve our platform, with new products aimed at business models that are adapting to the digital needs of the Brazilian population,” he said.
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According to Belvo, since it started operating in 2020, the startup has increased its customer base to over 60 companies across Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia and now handles millions of monthly API calls. During the last year, Belvo expanded its API coverage to over 40 financial institutions, now allowing companies to connect to over 90% of personal and business bank accounts in Latin America; as well as to tax authorities and gig-economy platforms.
