Brazilian FinTech EBANX has captured a $430m investment from Advent International of which $30m would go toward its planned initial public offering (IPO) of stock.
The Curitiba-based payment firm will use the cash to fund continued expansion across Latin America such as Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. Advent is also buying a stake from Ebanx’s existing investors.
Advent is one of the largest private equity firms and a successful investor in the Payments industry, having made investments in Vantiv, Worldpay, Nets, Nexi, Planet, Xplor Technologies, Prisma, Concardis, Monext, and Stone. All four of Advent’s funds, including Latin American Private Equity Fund (LAPEF), Global Private Equity (GPE), Advent Tech and Sunley House Capital, are participating in the same investment. As part of the deal, Advent is going to appoint a director to the company’s board, said Brenno Raiko, a managing director at Advent in Brazil. “This is Advent biggest check for a technology company in Latin America,” he added. The firm joins FTV Capital as a minority investor in EBANX.
Founded in 2012, Ebanx is a cross-border commerce platform in Latin America connecting global merchants with local consumers. It focuses on processing payments for global websites like Amazon, Alibaba Group Holdings’ AliExpress retail service, home-sharing site Airbnb and music-streaming service Spotify, helping them to conduct business with more than 70 million Latin American consumers across 15 countries through its platform. Globally, one of its peers is the Dutch company Adyen NV.
This year Ebanx is likely to process more than $7bn in total payments, doubling from 2020.
Commenting on the funding, EBANX CEO Joao Del Valle said, “Our goal has always been to … deliver a superior value proposition that makes it easier and more cost-effective for global companies to access and grow their businesses across Latin America,”
In May, EBANX said it was looking at acquisitions in Latin America amid preparations for an IPO. As part of its expansion efforts, the company said it would create a new platform called EBANX One that would incorporate cross-border payments and local transactions. “We haven’t set a date yet, but we are taking this IPO readiness project very seriously, and EBANX One is at the core of our business value,” said Del Valle.
The deal is the latest example of how busy dealmaking activity is for Brazilian financial startups, which are luring investors beyond traditional venture capital funds. Last week, Nubank announced a $750m funding round led by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Advent managing director and head of Latin America financial services Mario Malta added, “EBANX is one of the most impressive companies I’ve seen in the last 20 years. The company is the clear leader in a rapidly expanding market, serving clients that are among the fastest-growing companies in the world and helping them to sell throughout Latin America with simplicity, confidence and higher levels of transaction approval.”
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