Fintech Company EBANX is the Newest Unicorn in Latin America

CURITIBA, Brazil, Oct. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- EBANX, a payments fintech company headquartered in Brazil that connects global businesses to Latin American consumers, has raised a significant follow-on investment from FTV Capital, a US-based growth equity investment firm. The investment contributed to making the fintech company the newest unicorn of Latin America.

"Becoming a unicorn reflects the unique solutions we have created to meet the demands of some of the world's most recognized brands since we founded EBANX in 2012. From the start, our focus has been on connecting people in Latin America to global companies providing access and a seamless ability to transact. This investment from our partner FTV Capital highlights the continued success we have had in delivering best-in-class platform to our customers, and shines the light on Latin America as a massively attractive region for commerce," said Alphonse Voigt, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of EBANX.

With Latin America's fast-growing market and highly positive forecasts for the region, EBANX consolidates itself as a complete payment solution for global companies looking to expand their businesses in Latin America. Global ecommerce enterprises such as AliExpress, Wish, Gearbest, Pipedrive, Spotify, and Airbnb (these two in a partnership with Worldline) rely on EBANX to power their business in the region. EBANX's solution goes beyond the payment processing itself – providing market intelligence services, analytics, anti-fraud strategies, 24/7 customer service in local language of Latin American customers, and localized marketing consultancy.

"We have a deep knowledge of the Latin American market. We engage closely with our consumers and are always looking out for our merchants' needs. In order to succeed in Latin America, it is very important to understand the specificities of each country, and that's exactly what EBANX offers – technology, proximity, and solutions that fit seamlessly into the region's context and are tailored to our merchant's business models. This lowers the barrier to entry in the market and increases the Total Addressable Market," said Voigt.

EBANX is continuing to expand its operations throughout Latin America and aims to increase its global business development efforts. In 2018, the company hired Henrik Nilsmo as chief commercial officer (CCO), and will continue to invest in adding talents, specifically in sales, marketing, and IT. The business development vertical emphasizes North America, Europe and Asia. Recently, the company also announced partnerships with:

• Uber Pay - In September, EBANX announced it had become a payment partner for the new Uber Pay ecosystem to process cash vouchers and bank transfer payments for Uber in Brazil and other countries in Latin America.
• Shopify - New integrations throughout LatAm countries.
• Coursera, Scribd, Ctrip - Expanded cross-border payment processing in LatAm.
• Spotify - In a partnership with Worldline, EBANX started collaborating in the expansion project of Spotify throughout Latin America.
• Visa - Visa partnered with EBANX to expand their Cities of the Future program in the Brazilian state of Paraná to increase the use of electronic payments.

EBANX will also grow its product portfolio, including the expansion of EBANX Pay, a solution for local payment processing in Latin America. The solution first launched in Brazil in April for Brazilian businesses selling locally, and it is expected to launch in Colombia in 2020, followed by other countries in the region.

"EBANX is already a leader in cross-border payment processing, specializing in Latin America, and we will continue to build on this expertise. We also want to use our experience to build and enhance different products, such as local processing. By 2022 we aim to be the leader of both cross-border and local payments, for global companies in Latin America," said Voigt.

History with FTV Capital
In December 2017 EBANX raised a $30 million US dollars growth equity investment from FTV Capital, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst. The funding was focused on expanding the reach of EBANX operations within Latin America, and it was the first investment raised by the company. Since that investment, EBANX has grown 80% across all its verticals.

"EBANX has consistently outperformed our expectations, nearly doubling processing volumes in two years to over $2 billion US dollars," said Robert Anderson, partner at FTV Capital. "The Latin American ecommerce market is projected to double by 2023, making solutions that reduce friction and help merchants sell more highly attractive to businesses looking to capitalize on this large, underpenetrated market opportunity. FTV is excited to continue to support the company given EBANX's proven management team, differentiated product offering and customer centric approach."

Other recent EBANX milestones that contributed to the growth of the company over the last few months:

Products & Solutions

• EBANX Track, a track solution developed by EBANX end-user-focused development team, for ecommerce merchants and consumers to oversee their online orders.
• Local payment processing in Brazil, enabling Brazilian websites selling within the Brazilian market to use EBANX solutions.

Promotions & New Hires

• Daniele Fonseca joined as chief human resources officer (CHRO) in September 2019. Fonseca was previously director of corporate human resources, communication and sustainability at Embraco. She has over 20 years of experience in the people management area, having worked in food, retail, technology, and services industries.
• Henrik Nilsmo, chief commercial officer (CCO), joined in 2018 and has built a senior executive team located in the United States, Netherlands, and China, to further grow and expand EBANX geographical reach and footprint.
• André Boaventura was promoted to chief marketing officer (CMO) in October 2019. Boaventura has over 15 years of marketing and business development, and he joined EBANX in 2014. Boaventura built the marketing team, which is currently composed of over 50 people, with all functions managed in-house, and he led the development of the inside sales project.

Projects

• LatAm Cross-Border Summit was held in September 24 to September 26, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to gather global companies and entities to discuss business potential in Latin America. In its third year, the summit was a top executive level gathering focused on global payments in Latin America, bringing together over 250 executives from global companies such as AliExpress, Disney, Google, Stone, Visa, and Mastercard.
• Launch of Beyond Borders Research at the LatAm Cross-Border Summit – a study detailing the findings of cross-border consumption in Brazil.
• AliExpress Shopping Experience in Brazil was launched in September in collaboration with AliExpress, where Brazilian customers were given a hands-on experience with Chinese products from the Chinese retailer.
• Launch of distance learning project Girls 4 Tech, to introduce Brazilian women to coding, with the aim to reduce the gap of women in technology. Since it was first launched in March, over 12,000 women in Brazil have subscribed to the course.
• Relaunching of LABS - Latin America Business Stories, EBANX global content platform on business and technology in Latin America.

About EBANX
EBANX is a leading global fintech company with Latin American DNA. It has operations in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. EBANX was founded in 2012 to bridge the access gap between Latin Americans and international websites, by offering an end-to-end payment solution across the entire cross-border ecommerce transaction flow, providing over 100 Latin American local payment options to global merchants eager to expand throughout the region. The company has already helped over 50 million Latin Americans access global services and products with over 1,000 merchants expanding to Latin America. AliExpress, Wish, Pipedrive, Airbnb, and Spotify (these two in a partnership with Worldline) are some of the companies that use EBANX solutions. Besides the cross-border payment processing service, from 2019 EBANX Group started to offer local payment processing in Brazil, enabling Brazilian websites selling inside the Brazilian market to use EBANX solutions. The company goes beyond payment processing, by offering marketing consultancy services to merchants and a 24/7 local customer support team to serve all merchant's clients in Latin America – in their own language. For more information, please visit https://business.ebanx.com/en/press-room.

SOURCE EBANX