Based in London, the six-year-old electronic payments startup SumUp has just raised capital from big investors Bain Capital Credit, Goldman Sachs Private Capital, HPS Investment Partners, and TPG Sixth Street Partners in order to keep growing worldwide.
“This cash injection will significantly accelerate the growth of our customer base, enhance SumUp’s technology leadership position, and drive the development of new services,” said the co-founder Marc-Alexander Christ to Bloomberg.
From the total amount, a significant portion will be addressed to improve and expand the company’s operations in Brazil – BRL500 million (about $133 million in US dollars) to be precise. Future plans include increasing their staff in the country, hiring 100 more tech-focused employees in 2019.
“We intend to invest BRL500 million in the Brazilian operation. We plan to accelerate the growth of our customer base, increase product portfolio and carry out new acquisitions,” explained to Exame the founder of SumUp Brazil, Igor Marchesini.
The fintech recently acquired the Debitoor startups (Danish software for billing and online accounting) and Shoplo (Polish multi-channel online trading platform), and besides the plans for the Brazilian market, SumUp is also aiming at other neighboring countries, such as Argentina. “We will expand our operations in Latin America, in countries that will also have to go through the process of opening the [credit and debit cards] market.”
According to Marchesini, Brazil is among the top three markets of the UK based fintech, which has reached BRL250 million in income and 500 thousand customers over 2018 in the country.