San Francisco-based fintech Tribal, a B2B payment and financing platform
for emerging markets, raised a new debt round of $40 million led by Partners for Growth (PFG) and Stellar Development Foundation (SDF).
According to the firm, the funding will help Tribal expand its financing and payment services for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to new countries in Latin America.
“This is one of the first hybrid debt rounds combining both fiat and stablecoins. It’s a sign of crypto crossing over into mainstream use and adoption,” said Amr Shady, CEO of Tribal, in a press statement.
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The debt round closes at a moment of major development and momentum for Tribal, which has experienced more than 50x growth in LatAm since early 2021, serving customers in Mexico, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil.
“This round will help Tribal fund receivables from our growing customer base in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. The team at PFG has been great to work with and we’re excited to expand our partnership. We’re also thrilled to work closely with our equity investor, SDF, and to use Stellar USDC to fund the growth of SMBs in emerging markets,” said Duane Good, COO of Tribal.
The startup closed a combined Series A and debt round of
$34.3 million last April. As part of that investment, Tribal received $3 million from SDF to facilitate the development of blockchain products and to support integration onto the Stellar network.
“Integrating USDC into the Tribal ecosystem will provide SMBs with cheaper, easier, and faster access to capital,” said Mohamed Elkasstawi, chief strategy officer of Tribal who is spearheading the company’s blockchain strategy.
Tribal beta launched in December 2019 offering corporate cards and a spend management platform for startups and SMBs in emerging markets.
With the increased demand for more efficient online B2B banking experiences, especially at the onset of the pandemic, Tribal expanded its payments and financing products to include Tribal Pay, to offer customers settle non-card purchases and benefit from extended payment terms.
