Led · Series G · Jun 2021

Nubank provides digital financial services in Colombia and is expanding its operations and customer access across the country. The company increased a loan facility to support broader access to its services and to drive operational growth. In just over two years of operating in Colombia, Nu has amassed more than 700,000 customers and issued over 300,000 cards in the past 10 months. It reports serving customers in more than 80% of Colombian municipalities, and nearly one in ten adults in the country applied to become a Nu customer. The financing boost is positioned to expand the reach and quality of financial services available to Colombians and to accelerate Nu’s local growth trajectory. The IFC described the increase as its first investment with a digital bank in the region, reflecting institutional confidence in Nu’s leadership in digital financial services. Nubank operates a large digital financial services platform focused on consumer banking products, initially centered on credit cards and expanding into deposits and other services. The company announced a $330M equity capitalization to finance portfolio expansion, increase penetration across market segments, and strengthen its Mexican operations. Nubank received regulator CNBV approval to expand beyond credit cards to include deposits and other financial services and will operate in Mexico as SOFIPO Nu Mexico Financiera. It plans a phased roll-out of a fully digital savings account, Cuenta Nu, and a debit card, both managed through the Nu app. Nu México has over 3 million customers, is the largest issuer of new credit cards in the country, and has a waitlist of thousands for Cuenta Nu after three years in-market. Management says the funding will unlock growth in deposits and other products such as personal loans and underlines Mexico as the company’s second-largest and strategic market in its internationalization roadmap. Nubank is a Brazilian digital bank founded in 2013 by David Vélez, Junqueira, and Edward Wible. Its core products include digital banking and credit cards; it serves about 54 million customers regionally and is the largest credit card issuer in Mexico. The company began international expansion in 2019 in Mexico and 2020 in Colombia, where it is building engineering, product, and data science teams. Operational metrics cited include 1.4 million Mexican customers and an NPS of 94 at the end of 2021, and 114,000 customers in Colombia after 11 months of card issuance. The newly announced funding will be used to expand its footprint in Mexico and Colombia, accelerate technology and product development, grow its customer base, and hire. Nubank was also named one of TIME's 100 most influential companies. Nubank started as a tech-first Brazilian fintech and has grown into a digital bank offering fee-free credit cards, digital bank accounts, debit cards, loans, insurance, Pix P2P payments, rewards and small-business accounts. The company serves largely unbanked or underserviced customers in Brazil and has expanded services into Colombia and Mexico. Nubank emphasizes low customer acquisition cost via word of mouth and reinvests in customer service; it recently hired senior executives to help scale operations. The business has grown rapidly — customers rose from about 34 million to 40 million in roughly six months — and continues hiring. Management says the new funds will be used to grow the business and hire more people, while it evaluates further market expansion. Nubank is a digital-first bank launched in 2013 that began as a credit card company and now provides a full range of banking products without physical branches. The company has grown to 34 million customers and was onboarding roughly 41,000 new customers per day by September of last year. Nubank emphasizes low customer acquisition cost (the company says it has $0 CAC) and invests in customer service and employee compensation to drive organic growth. The app-based product is location-agnostic, allowing the company to reach municipalities traditional banks do not, and it offers credit-building features such as low initial card limits that expand with on-time payments. Nubank has expanded beyond Brazil into Colombia and Mexico and plans to use new funding to flesh out operations in those markets while continuing to build product offerings in Brazil. According to the company, its Brazil operation has been cash-flow positive since 2018.

Led · Equity · Aug 2018

Paytm, operated by One97 Communications, offers a mobile wallet that lets users transfer money, pay bills, buy tickets, and access small loans; it also sells e‑commerce, games and ticketing services. The company has expanded merchant services, claiming 15 million merchants and presence in over 2,000 towns and cities in India, and also offers its wallet in Japan. Paytm plans to use fresh capital to court merchants and expand financial offerings such as lending and insurance, and has committed additional investments (including a stated ₹10,000 crore commitment and a September plan to invest $2.7 billion over two years). The firm reported a loss of $549 million for the fiscal year ended March, up from a $206 million loss the prior year, and said it has cut its burn by more than a third in the past six months. Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma has indicated the company may consider an IPO in two to three years. Paytm faces intensified competition in India from Google Pay, Walmart’s PhonePe and the impending WhatsApp Pay rollout. Paytm is an Indian payments gateway and digital wallet provider offering comprehensive payment services for customers and merchants. It provides mobile payment solutions to over 7 million merchants and allows consumers to make mobile payments from cards, bank accounts and digital credit. Paytm brought QR-based mobile payments to the Indian market and launched Paytm Payments Bank. The company has a stated mission to bring 500 million Indians into the mainstream economy through financial inclusion. Berkshire Hathaway's investment and the addition of its investment manager to the board underscore investor confidence in Paytm's financial-services growth trajectory. The articles report an implied company valuation of approximately $10–$12 billion tied to the recent transaction. Paytm is described as India's leading digital payments firm. The company's core business is in digital payments. It has raised $1.4 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. The round is noted as the largest funding round by a single investor in India. The investment is characterized as SoftBank's biggest bet in India's start-up ecosystem. Paytm E-Commerce operates a mobile commerce platform covering payments, recharges, shopping and movie tickets. The company reports over 200m registered users. Led by CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm is the consumer brand of One97 Communications. The company plans to use the funds to expand its online business. One97 Communications is backed by Ant Financial (Alipay), Mediatek, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank. The articles describe the recent transaction as an equity stake sale that injected $200m into the business. Paytm operates a broad digital-commerce platform that provides mobile wallets, payments, ticketing, on-demand services, travel bookings, and a marketplace for physical goods. The company reports 135 million digital wallets in use and about 3 million transactions per day, claiming roughly 75% share of India’s digital wallets. Paytm says it has raised $760 million to date and plans to use new funding to expand and scale its payments and commerce businesses. A key near-term product plan is Paytm Payments Bank, an online bank for consumer savings and loans that the company has been building for months. Paytm will reorganize by splitting payments/financial services and its e-commerce sales platform into separate entities owned by parent One97 Communications. The company is partnering with Mediatek for integrations into smartphones, reflecting a strategic hardware-services tie-up mentioned in the articles.

Led · Equity · Aug 2018

One97 owns Paytm, a digital wallet and payments platform with 230 million registered users. The company has recently been expanding beyond payments into mobile services, adding a messenger and games with the aim of becoming a broader communications and services platform. Paytm’s investor base includes SoftBank and Alibaba; SoftBank led a $450 million round earlier this year. Reports say Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to buy shares in One97, reflecting renewed investor interest at a multi‑billion dollar valuation. A spokesperson for One97 declined to comment on the reports. One97 Communications operates Paytm, India’s leading mobile payments platform and owner of an online commerce business. Paytm reports more than 23 million users. The company says it will use the new investment to grow its mobile payments platform and acquire more users for its online commerce business. Ant Financial — which runs Alipay (claimed 190 million users) and was spun off from Alibaba in 2011 — will take a 25% stake in One97 under a strategic agreement. The firms cite India’s rapidly growing e‑commerce market (Gartner estimates it will reach $6 billion this year, a 70% increase over 2014) as a key opportunity. Alibaba co‑founder Jack Ma has also said he is interested in making more investments in India. One97 Communications Limited is India’s pioneering mobile Internet services company that runs a large consumer-facing mobile marketing and commerce platform. In August 2011 more than 450 million mobile users used One97’s platform for conducting transactions, and the company serves millions of users every day. One97 plans to leverage its mobile-ecosystem expertise to create dominance in mobile Internet marketing and commerce and to expand operations in emerging mobile markets. The company is expanding services to other developing countries in South Asia and Africa and intends to use SAP’s ecosystem to extend its global reach. One97 is described in the announcement as one of the largest consumer Internet companies by revenue in India and is backed by marquee investors including Intel Capital, SAIF Partners, SAP Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank.