Kushki, backed by GED Capital's Conexo Ventures fund, reaches USD$600 million valuation

Kushki, the Latin American Fintech backed by GED Capital's Conexo Ventures fund, has closed a Series B investment round of USD$86 million, reaching a valuation of approximately 600 million dollars, the largest in Latin American history.

The investment thesis of the Conexo Ventures fund is confirmed by this important milestone. The investment is focused on series A investment in entrepreneurial teams whose project can become a leader in its category in the United States and Latin America. Thus, achieve the following rounds of financing (Series B and C) and, finally, the exits. Most of the 6 companies invested by Conexo have these characteristics.

Kushki focuses on working with large and highly transactional companies. It counts with important clients around LATAM such as Telefónica, Cabify, Uber, Rappi, OfficeMax, Nubank and SURA, among others. These companies choose Kushki for its local coverage around a large part of the region, and have been highly benefited with cutting-edge technology, tailored service, and higher payment acceptance rate, which increases sales for their clients.

Since it was founded four years ago, the payments platform has become a technology giant with a valuation of approximately 600 million dollars, the highest amount in a Series B round for a Latin venture-backed company. The round was led by Softbank, and Kaszek Ventures, as well as earlier investors such as GED Capital, through its Conexo Ventures fund, DILA Capital, and Magma Partners.

Kushki’s CEO Aron Schwarzkopf explains: "We have spent several years laying the foundations and rebuilding local payment pipelines in Latin America. Our vision is to provide state-of-the-art, standardized and scalable infrastructure across the region so that Latin America's digital economy can be installed on top of it for decades to come. The use of digital payments across the region has typically been a fragmented and primitive process due to a lack of investment in banking infrastructure. With this new funding, we will be able to accelerate the power of Kushki's infrastructure across Latam, democratizing the movement of money for both businesses and consumers."

The company currently operates with its online payment platform in Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, and is looking to reach more markets for this 2021.

The co-founder and CEO of Kushki, Aron Schwarzkopf, will participate in a 4yfn fintech session at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on June 28. The session will explore how to create unicorns in Latin America alongside Softbank's Fintech partner, and will be moderated by Conexo Ventures partner Damien Balsan. (https://www.4yfn.com/agenda/)

Conexo Ventures fund’s first investment

Kushki was the first investment made by GED Capital's venture capital fund, Conexo Ventures.

In the last 18 months, the Fund has closed 6 investments, apart from in Kushki, in Simple Cloud (cloud-based platform for digital content management and creation), Revelock (cybersecurity and anti-fraud through ‘Deep learning’), BNext (Marketplace for financial, insurance and travel related products), Galgus (enterprise software provider in the Wi-Fi area) and Atani (global platform for end-to-end digital asset management).

The fund's investment strategy consists on supporting, through Series A investments, formed entrepreneurial teams which are "exportable" to the United States and Latin America, where they can achieve the following rounds of financing (Series B and C) and, finally, the exits.

The Conexo Ventures vehicle, which has already received investment commitments of around 40 million euros, has a target size of 50 million euros and a hard cap of 70 million euros. It plans to invest in around 20 deals, of which around 50% will be follow-on investments.

About Kushki

Kushki's platform, founded in New York in 2017 by Ecuadorian serial entrepreneurs Sebastian Castro and Aron Schwarzkopf, has standardized payment interoperability across Latam, enabling local and cross-border payments with credit and debit cards, bank transfers, digital cash, wallets and other alternative payment methods. As a result, the company has experienced exponential growth, tripling the size of its team by 2021.

About GED Capital (www.gedcapital.com)

GED Capital is an independent asset manager founded in 1996 that operates in the middle market. It currently manages more than €900 million through various vehicles such as private equity, venture capital and infrastructure. It has more than 50 domestic and foreign investors, including mainly pension funds, funds of funds, insurance companies, family offices and financial institutions.