Brazilian neobank raises $400 million as customer numbers triple

Latin American neobank startup Nubank has raised another $400m, bringing its total fundraising to date to $1.2bn.

Reports suggest the latest capital injection valued the company at $25bn, making it one of the world's most valuable fintechs. 

New investors in the company include GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and the fund management group Invesco. Existing investors Sequoia, Tencent, Dragoneer and Ribbit also participated.

The São Paulo-headquarted neobank has more than tripled its customer base from 12 million to 34 million users since it last raised money in July 2019. Founded in 2013 with operations centered in Brazil, where it claims to have run a cash flow positive business since 2018, Nubank expanded to Mexico and Colombia in 2020.

“We started seven years ago in Brazil, a country with one of the most concentrated banking sectors in the world, and we were able to free millions of people of the bureaucracy and the pain,” said David Vélez, Nubank’s founder and chief executive, adding in a statement:

“But this pain is not exclusive to Brazilians. It is a pain shared among all Latin Americans. With this new round of funding, we will be able to grow and scale our recently launched operations in Mexico and Colombia, and free more and more people from complexity.”

Nubank’s core products are credit card and digital savings accounts, and more than a fifth of its customers have never had a credit card before. The firm rolled out its credit cards in Mexico and Colombia last year.