Mexican challenger bank albo has secured $45m as plans on becoming the nation’s answer to Chime.
Valar Ventures, Greyhound Capital, Mountain Nazca and Flourish Ventures backed the round.
It will use the money to expanding its lending, insurance and its other services, similar to how Brazilian neobank Nubank, which recently raised a $300m round, has successfully done.
albo’s strategy is reportedly to target low-income customers, hoping to draw them into a world of digital payments rather than relying on physical money.
Speaking with TechCrunch, founder and CEO Angel Sahagú said “We are targeting a similar market to Chime. We are targeting people who are underbanked and don’t have access to all the financial products in the market.”
The news comes after FinTech companies in Latin America raised over $1.9bn across 128 transactions in the first nine months of 2020, according to FinTech Global’s research.
While there is still some ways to go before it reaches the $2.75bn raised in 2019, it is still a testament to how the nascent FinTech industry in the region has come to life.
Comparatively, only $340.4m were injected in Latin America across 118 rounds in 2016. In 2018, that figure had climbed up to be just over $1bn.
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