Contxto – Today, Belvo announced it raised a US$10 million investment through Founders Fund and Kaszek Ventures.
The startup will use the money to develop its API platform for fintech products. To that end, it will be tripling the size of its 25-person team for its offices both in Mexico and Spain. Belvo also plans to expand its solution throughout the region.
It currently operates in Mexico and Colombia however the startup aims to launch in Brazil soon.
With fintech regulations rolling out in Latin America, open banking has never looked so darned attractive. Or as Matías Van Thienen, Principal at Founders Fund put it:
“We are excited to partner with Belvo as they build out critical infrastructure to power a new generation of fintech applications across Latin America. Open Banking will be a transformational trend in the region and this team is best equipped to conquer the market.”
- Related article: Life after Y Combinator, software startup Belvo tells all
What to expect
Belvo’s co-Founder, Pablo Viguera told Contxto what new additions developers can expect from its platform thanks to the investment.
“We’re working on API verticals that will allow our customers to do more than just accessing financial data,” explained Viguera in written correspondence.
“For example, they’ll have access to smart endpoints that address questions like ‘how much money does this person earn?’ ‘What assets and liabilities do they have?’ ‘Do they pay their debts back?’ Likewise we’ll also be exploring payment verticals, but that will be further down the road.”
Viguera added that Belvo will continue to work on improving its developer hub.
In short, the startup is adding more tools to let programmers go as crazy and creative as they want with the fintech products they forge.
Indeed, Belvo wants to make its API platform as developer-friendly as possible. Which hey—makes sense, they’re the ones who build the fintech products we know. So it’s nice to see that this startup is showing them some love and making its product as suited to their needs as possible.
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Belvo’s busy year
Entrepreneurs Oriol Tintoré and Pablo Viguera founded Belvo one year ago. But a lot has happened since then.
It raised pre-seed funding through Y Combinator’s accelerator program as part of its Winter 2020 Batch. Almost simulaneaosuly, its API platform went live last January. In late April, it launched new SDK packages for its platform, as well as expanded its coverage of banking institutions in Mexico. Belvo also announced its expansion to Colombia.
Now the Belvo team is adding two big whig investors to its list of accomplishments.
Kaszek is a pretty familiar name in the venture capital (VC) scene of Latin America. It’s backed Gympass, Open English, Konfío—to name a few.
And for those of you who don’t know, Founders Fund is a contributor to some major names in tech like Facebook, Stripe, Airbnb, and SpaceX (who else is hoping that Saturday’s launch is a success?). Though it’s no stranger to Latin America. It’s previously invested in other startups like Nubank and Pipefy.
Adding up the numbers, Belvo raised a total of US$13 million in venture capital. Considering the size of the ever-growing fintech scene in Latin America, that number sounds just about right.
Related articles: Tech and startups from Mexico!
-ML
