Plurall, a company focused on improving the financial inclusion of solopreneurs in Latin America, has closed a pre-seed round on $1.5m and raised $10m in debt.
The company – which is backed by investors in the US, the UK, Mexico, Spain and Columbia – is planning to launch its microbusiness-orientated services in April 2022.
Federico Gómez – co-founder and CEO of Plurall – said that out of almost 10 million microbusinesses in Columbia, only 1.6 million have some degree of financial inclusion. He cited there is a $45bn lending opportunity and $100bn payments opportunity in which current players are only serving 6% of.
Gómez stated in its first stage, Plurall will provide working capital loans, together with a digital account, to provide these solopreneurs with ‘the attention they deserve as the heart and soul of the Columbian economy’.
Plurall co-founder and CSO Glenn Goldman said, “This is perhaps the first time in LatAm FinTech, and one of the first times around the world, that a startup is able to raise international institutional debt for originating their first loans. The typical path is to use expensive equity for the first year or two before being able to access an institutional debt facility.”
Visa Columbia country manager Adriana Cárdenas added, “We are glad to announce our partnership with Plurall which responds to our purpose to work more closely with FinTech in Colombia and to connect more people and businesses through innovative, fast and secure digital payment solutions. We will work to present different benefits, specially developed to solve different micro businesses needs and help more SMEs have access to digital financial solutions”
