- Brazilian fintech’s long-awaited fundraising has been settled at $231 million, led by $200 million from Softbank
- SoftBank’s million-dollar contribution to Creditas was the fourth announced by the Japanese group, after the $ 5 billion Innovation Fund for Latin America in March
- Creditas intends to open an office in Mexico as a future expansion plan
Brazilian fintech Creditas has just closed a deal for $231 million in fundraising. Specialized in credit lines, the startup will receive $200 million from Japanese fund Softbank, and the other $31 million will be raised by Vostok Emerging Finance (VEF), a British-based Amadeus Capital and Spanish bank’s fund Santander Innoventures, according to information from Exame.
Offering credit lines of $1.3K to $518K (BRL$5K to $2M) in exchange for a property or a vehicle as collateral, Creditas reached a $700M valuation with this recent round of fundraising.
“We believe that interest rates in Brazil may be lower and, with this investment, we plan to accelerate the process of improving the lives of more Brazilians“, said Sergio Furio, president and founder of Creditas to Exame.
The fintech’s business model fills a well-known gap in Brazil, reshaping lending in a country where consumers are used to paying more than 200 percent interest rates on consumer loans. To make that possible, Creditas innovation is in the concept of collateralized loans – something that local banks don’t usually offer, since they prefer traditional high-margin unsecured loans.
Creating a solution that is deeply related to Brazilian’s culture, the fintech has already caught the eyes of several foreign investors such as Vostok Emerging Finance, Kaszek Ventures, Quona Capital, QED Investors and – more recently – of the tech giant, Softbank.
Creditas has already set plans for the capital: to launch new products and expand out of Brazil, probably to Mexico. The expectation is to open an office in the other Latin-American country by the end of the year, according to Bloomberg.
