Brazil's fintech Cora raises $26.7 million led by Ribbit Capital

Cora will use the proceeds for hiring, expanding the credit offer, and further enhancing its customer base

Cora's co-founder and CEO, Igor Senra. Photo: Cora/Courtesy

05.Apr.2021 13:27 BRT
UPDATED 14:27 BRT

The Brazilian fintech offers digital account, Visa debit card, PIX free of charge, and management tools for small and medium businesses;
At the end of 2019, Cora had already secured $10 million led by Kaszek, and Ribbit.

Brazilian fintech specializing in small and medium-sized companies, Cora announced on Monday that it raised a $26.7 million round (BRL 150 million) led by the US private fund Ribbit Capital, which included Kaszek, QED Investors, and Greenoaks Capital.

The fintech offers digital accounts, Visa debit cards, PIX (Brazil’s instant payments system, powered by the Central Bank) free of charge, and management tools. The company claims to have around 60,000 customers.

The firm’s co-founders, Igor Senra and Leonardo Mendes launched Cora in 2020 with a not so simple mission: to be “the bank of small businesses.”

Small businesses gained the two entrepreneurs’ attention when they founded the payment company Moip back in 2007.

“When we founded Moip, we had no intention of saying that the company would change the world. We wanted to copy PayPal. It was by working on Moip that we started building (the business) with the small entrepreneur, and we found out how much they are important for the economy. It was the “aha” moment when we realized that we were not there to copy PayPal, but for the small entrepreneur, we had several success stories,” Senra recalled, in an interview with LABS last year.

Moip ended up being sold in 2016 to the German firm Wirecard, and today it belongs to PagSeguro.

Cora kicked off in December 2019, when the newly created startup raised $10 million in a Seed round of Kaszek Ventures and Ribbit Capital. If for many companies the coronavirus pandemic was the time to rethink the business, Cora was born with the DNA of startups that defy the crisis. The fintech operated in a beta version until the beginning of the pandemic. The real operation started in May when Brazil registered 500,000 infected people by COVID-19.

Now, the investment will allow Cora to expand its staff, from 110 to 230 in 2021, besides launching a credit offer, within the plan of expanding its customer base to 380,000 by the end of this year.