Tiger Global leads $ 25 million investment in Swap, which aims to be “LatAm’s fintech factory” – TechCrunch

Swap, a São Paulo-based BaaS startup, today announced it has raised $ 25 million in a Series A led by Tiger Global Management.

The funding was “heavily oversubscribed,” according to the company, which has now raised $ 28 million since its inception in October 2018. Endeavor, Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, DST Global partners, ONEVC, Global Founders Capital and Flourish Ventures all participated in the last round. Previous funders include Canary and other angels such as Ariel Lambrecht, co-founder of 99 – the first Brazilian unicorn, and Guilherme Bonifácio, co-founder of iFood.

Founded by Douglas Storf, Ury Rappaport and Alexandre Takinami, Swap aims to enable businesses to transform their financial operations through its APIs, which it says provide users with “the infrastructure for various financial solutions, allowing them to monetize their platforms.” .

The inspiration behind Swap came from Storf and Rappaport’s own experience at 99 (formerly 99Taxis), where the two sought to create a series of financial products for the transport app partner drivers. It was there that the couple recognized the opportunity for an infrastructure service that would help any business deliver financial products to their clients.

Lately, Swap’s growth has been impressive. Over the past year, he has seen his clientele increase by 300%. Over the same period, it has grown steadily by 30% per month and 7,500% year-over-year with profitable third-quarter results, according to Swap CEO Douglas Storf. (Of course, we don’t know the base he grew up from, but the multiples are remarkable).

“We have demonstrated the fit between the product and the market and are helping more and more companies integrate financing offerings into their products,” said Storf.

Swap operates in its home country, Brazil, and seeks to use its capital to expand the use cases it serves there. The company aims to specialize by segment from a market and technological point of view.

“We have always strived to be a fully integrated solution that truly enables businesses to launch their fintechs quickly and efficiently,” said Storf. “Rather than being a simple card processor, we have specialized in delivering the complete solution to specific segments, being at the same time their sponsor bin, their card processor, their partner bank and providing all the infrastructure. base to make them operational. “

The CEO says the full service approach sets Swap apart from other BaaS companies in the market. The company also has a strategy to address specific segment issues. For example, in early 2021 it launched Multiflex, an offer intended for companies with flexible services, and in September 2021, the Swap Credit platform, intended for companies in this segment. In short, the company aims to be “the fintech factory of Latin America”.

She is currently working with 15 clients such as Swile, Portão 3, Z1, BMP Money Plus and A55.

Going forward, Storf notes that its customers are expanding to other Latin American countries, so it will be a natural development to expand into new markets outside of Brazil.

Swap started in 2021 with 27 employees and today has 60 employees. It plans to double that number in 2022 with its new capital recruiting for product development, operations and sales.

Tiger’s global partner Alex Cook notes that the number of fintech companies and use cases in Latin America has “grown dramatically, lowering costs and improving experiences for consumers and businesses.”

“We are delighted to partner with Doug, Ury and the Swap team as they build a modern card issuance and banking infrastructure platform for the next generation of financial services companies in Brazil,” he wrote by e-mail.

The latest financing marks the third time that Global Founder Capital has invested in Swap. According to Fabricio Pettená, partner: “Swap has completely reinvented banking as a service in Brazil, going beyond card acceptance and credit and vertical solutions.

Bruno Yoshimura, general partner and co-founder of ONEVC, specifies that Swap now offers two major products: the card as a service and the infrastructure for credit.

“Now they plan to listen to the needs of their customers to develop the other building blocks,” he said. “With three former CTOs on the core team, I think they have the right DNA to build AWS for Latam fintechs. “