Contxto – Colombia-based Minka announced it’s raised US$3 million in an investment round led by FinTech Collective. Among other contributors there’s Colle Capital Partners, the Collaborative Fund, Mastercard, and multinational firm Carvajal Tecnología y Servicios.
The fintech will use the seed funding to hire developers, as well as administrative and commercial staff. Minka also intends to scale the business and further develop its products. Consequently, it will be interesting to see the startup’s infrastructure solutions for fintech become more widespread. So that’s good for the ecosystem as a whole.
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Fintech infrastructure problems in Latin America
Behind effective and fast fintech products, there’s infrastructure to get the job done. Unfortunately, Latin America’s fintech infrastructure has yet to reach its full potential. And this is the very issue Minka addresses. It’s also one of the motives for investors’ decision to contribute to the startup’s growth.
“In order for the fintech revolution to take place in Colombia and Latin America, there needs to be infrastructure,” noted Sean Lippel, a Principal at FinTech Collective.
“It’s very difficult to solve problems regarding financial inclusion and the use of cash when there’s no adequate infrastructure to move money. That’s where we see Minka offering a real solution to this challenge.”
The startup works with cloud-computing and blockchain to better connect financial institutions and speed up transactions. This is possible through an open banking platform upon which fintechs can build products that are directly connected.
That way, payments can truly be immediate, in real-time, and at no cost to the user. It’s because of these traits that the fintech hopes users will ditch the cash for digital solutions.
Minka’s underlying goal is to transform its platform into a software as a service (SaaS) product.
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-ML
