Brazil‘s tech company Locaweb will start offering credit in the coming weeks. The novelty marks the debut of the company specializing in website hosting and cloud computing in offering financial services to retain Brazilian small businesses that are having to speed up digitization due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Loan will be one of our next fronts of growth,” Locaweb Chief Executive Fernando Cirne told Reuters.
Initially, the loans will be for customers of Credisfera, the fintech acquired by Locaweb in February. Afterward, the service will be expanded, possibly through partnerships with financial institutions, said Cirne.
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Payments, order delivery, corporate management and credit are just some of the services that Locaweb has incorporated into its ecosystem with the 10 startup acquisitions it has made since it debuted on Bovespa in February last year.
This non-organic expansion was financed with BRL 575 million from its IPO and another BRL 1.3 billion from a follow-on offering in February this year. Currently, the company claims to have around BRL 1.8 billion in cash.
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According to Cirne, many small entrepreneurs are now beginning to realize the second stage of digitization, requiring a more complete approach than just selling, receiving, and ordering deliveries online.
“First it was a survival movement, now it’s starting to think of e-commerce as a tool for differentiation,” he said, referring, for example, to services like marketing and corporate management. “For this reason, we will continue to grow through acquisitions.”
Translated by LABS.
