Launch of payment infrastructure in Argentina Pomelo has raised $40 million in a Series B funding round.
The Buenos Aires-based company launched in 2021 with the goal of giving fintech and integrated finance players a way to launch virtual accounts and issue prepaid and credit cards through compliant onboarding processes.
Pomelo launched with its first customer in January 2022 — at the time it only supported prepaid products in Argentina.
Since then, the startup has evolved its model to provide llocal and international companies a way to offer prepaid, debit and credit cards to their customers in multiple countries through what executives describe as “a single technology integration…at a fraction of the cost” of traditional methods. Pomelo has also expanded beyond its home market of Argentina to Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru.
“Time to market is 10x faster” than traditional methods — a matter of weeks in some cases, CEO and co-founder said Gaston Yrigoyenas Pomelo claims to do the “regulatory and operational heavy lifting” for its clients.
Today, Pomelo has over 100 corporate clients, including banks, multinationals and tech startups such as Rappi, Bitso, Stori, Nomad, PayJoy, Ripio and AstroPay. Revenue grew 3x or 200% in 2023 over 2022, according to Irigoyen, and is expected to double this year. In the meantime, Total payment volume increased sevenfold in 2023, reaching a capacity to process 55 million transactions per day, he added.
Some of her clients “are just global clients who want to execute in Latin America.” Irigoyen told TechCrunch in an interview.
“Companies like Paysafe, which are, let’s say, European companies that want to do business in Latin America, come and work with us…and they have an easy path to all of Latin America using our infrastructure,” he added. .
Kaszek led the final lap of Pomelo, which also included participation from monashees, Index Ventures, S32, TQ Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst. The latest funding brings the startup’s total since its inception to $103 million. Irigoyen declined to disclose the valuation, saying only that it was “a positive round, not a bearish round.”
Pomelo raised $35 million in one Series A round in October 2021 and then announced an $18 million expansion in that round in August 2022. Raised a $9 million seed round; in May 2021, pre-product and pre-revenue.
The startup handles card issuance, processing and transaction management for its customers.
“Issue means allowing our customers to leverage our licenses with networks such as Visa and Mastercard.” Irigoyen said. “So we can technically be the issuers of these cards on behalf of our customers.”
Recently, the startup has put a lot of emphasis on its credit card management platform, which is essentially a SaaS tool “to manage an entire credit card business,” according to Irigoyen.
The company, which has 265 employees, plans to use the new capital in part to double down in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.
Kaszek co-founder and managing partner Nicolas Szekasy, who is joining Pomelo’s board as part of the investment, said he was impressed with how the company “has shown exceptional traction in a very short period of time”.
“Pomelo is leading a new generation of payment infrastructure companies in Latin America,” he added.
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