Covid-19 has added to the need for digitalisation in payments, wealth management, digital trading and regulatory technology as people have struggled to shop in stores or pay for things in cash. But can any company become a fintech?
Ricardo Latournerie and Héctor Shibata at Mexico-based soft drinks group Arca Continental’s corporate venturing unit AC Ventures will ask this question in a webinar on the 21st in partnership with Global Corporate Venturing (GCV).
The question is well-timed, following Nigeria-based Paystack’s sale to American payments peer Stripe last week for reportedly more than $200m and Mexico and Colombia-based Chiper’s $12m A round backed by Copelco’s Wind Ventures to help storekeepers gain lines of credit and move beyond cash.
Focus seems to help as Klar, a challenger bank co-headquartered in Germany and Mexico, has raised $15m in its series A round led by Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures), the corporate venturing unit of Netherlands-listed conglomerate Prosus, with participation from International Finance Corporation (IFC), VC firms ACrew and Quona Capital and Mouro Capital (formerly Santander Innoventures as the Spain-based bank’s CVC unit).
Leila Search, IFC’s FinTech Investments Group, said: “Since more than half of Mexicans don’t have a basic bank account, financial access is going to be the main battle for Mexico over the coming years.”
Klar has issued more than 25,000 credit lines among its 200,000 customers in less than 12 months.
You can learn more about Mexico’s corporate venturing ecosystem at the digital event on 5 November in partnership between trade association Amexcap, publisher INC and GCV and why financial services in emerging markets are increasingly attractive as an SVB-hosted webinar on Thursday, 22nd including Rohit Bodas, partner at BBVA’s Propel venture firm, will confirm.
