• Linio

  Led · Equity · Sep 2016

  Linio raised €50m of new funding in September 2016. Kinnevik committed a follow-on investment of €12m into Linio. The funding round is being implemented in several tranches. Upon implementation of all tranches Kinnevik's ownership will increase to 27% from 17%. The press release does not disclose Linio's operating metrics or product details. The announcement was published alongside Kinnevik's financial updates for other portfolio companies Westwing and Home24. Linio is an Amazon-style e-commerce marketplace active in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru, selling both directly and via third-party merchants. Its sites list over 300,000 products across categories including technology, fashion, home goods, music and books. The company claims to be the No. 1 online store in Mexico with over 15 million monthly website hits, more than 2 million Facebook fans and over 50,000 Twitter followers. Founded in 2012 within Rocket Internet's portfolio, Linio plans to expand into Chile and is opening Central America via a hub in Panama. Management says it will use the new financing to accelerate expansion across Spanish-speaking Latin America. The company is not disclosing valuation, sales, profitability or customer counts beyond the stated traffic and social metrics. Linio is a Rocket Internet‑incubated e‑commerce marketplace offering roughly 150,000 items across seven categories (technology, home, fashion, health and beauty, kids, books and magazines, and sports). Founded in 2012, the company operates in Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela and centralizes logistics and back‑office functions to reduce operational costs. It positions itself as an Amazon-style marketplace for Latin America and intends to scale within its existing markets rather than expand into new countries. Linio reports engagement metrics of about 20 million site hits, 2 million Facebook fans and 35,000 Twitter followers, but declined to disclose revenue, run rate or total funds raised to date. The company says it will use new funding to scale operations, improve service, and increase market share and market leadership in its current markets. The business model emphasises inventory breadth and centralized operations as Rocket Internet builds capital‑intensive e‑commerce businesses in emerging markets. Linio sells a broad range of consumer goods online across categories including technology, entertainment, home, babies and toys, books, office accessories, and personal care. The company launched in spring 2012 and has pursued aggressive, capital‑fuelled expansion to capture Latin American e‑commerce market share. It operates in Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela and positions itself as the region's "largest, fastest‑growing e‑commerce retailer." The article reports a €20M (~$26.5M) round from previous backer Summit Partners and notes an earlier, separate investment this month from German retail group Tengelmann described as an "8‑digit Euro sum" (reportedly €15–20M). Other named backers include AB Kinnevik, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and Rocket Internet. The new funds are said to be used for further growth across Linio's Latin American markets.

• YellowPepper

  Led · Series C · Feb 2015

  YellowPepper provides a digital finance platform that enables consumers, merchants, issuers and processors to manage and accept cashless payments. Its proprietary technology powers 480 million digital transactions annually, serves over 6.6 million monthly active users and connects more than 400,000 merchants across six countries. The company works with more than 60 clients, including major financial institutions and retailers in Latin America. YellowPepper plans to accelerate the momentum of its platform and build a robust regional ecosystem to simplify interacting with, managing and accepting cashless payments. To support that expansion it announced a $12.5M Series D with participation from Visa and current investors. FT Partners served as YellowPepper's exclusive strategic and financial advisor. YellowPepper recently launched Yepex, pitched as Latin America’s "mobile smart wallet," and focuses on mobile payments across Android and iOS. Yepex lets users store multiple debit and credit cards and transact using unique tokens communicated manually, via HCE, or QR codes so sensitive card data is not exposed. The tokenization approach removes the need for NFC-capable phones and is designed to drastically reduce card-not-present fraud, enable card-and-PIN-less ATM withdrawals, and support retail use cases like pre-ordering and express checkout. The company claims over five million customers, more than 30 million transactions per month, and an 85% market share in LatAm. Banamex ran a controlled pilot and will launch a beta with users and merchants in Mexico. The latest proceeds will be dedicated mainly to Yepex’s development and commercialization, and the company has raised $34 million to date. YellowPepper provides an open-architecture mobile payment platform that lets consumers store value, pay for goods, and transfer or withdraw funds using mobile phones. The company focuses on scaling mobile money deployments to increase financial inclusion, particularly among unbanked populations. YellowPepper said the USAID/HIFIVE grant will let it expand a successful pilot in Haiti and help build a vibrant, safe, accessible payment ecosystem there. The firm is an integral partner in TchoTcho Mobile, Haiti’s first mobile money offering, delivered in partnership with Scotiabank and Digicel. Founded in 2004 and based in Miami, YellowPepper operates in nine countries and reports over 2.5 million users. The company is also the recipient of the IFC/World Bank’s first equity investment in a mobile financial services company in Latin America. YellowPepper is a mobile banking company operating in eight Latin American countries. It offers mobile banking services and is developing a clearinghouse for mobile payments to enable subscribers, retailers, billers, consumers and banks to interact on a common platform via mobile phones. The company has more than 2 million active users. Founded in 2004, YellowPepper will use the $5M equity investment led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which committed $3M, to further develop its product and expand into new markets. The financing brings total capital raised to date to over $15M. The company currently offers services in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Haiti and Panama.

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