Since March, several media began to comment on the investment plans of Softbank Group for Latin America. This Japanese conglomerate will allocate $5B to support startups in the region.
Marcelo Claure, COO of Softbank Group, said earlier in an interview that Softbank is looking for unicorns or companies with the potential to achieve the status of unicorns to invest in Latin America. Therefore it was not strange that Rappi was mentioned as one of the first investments of the tech fund in the region. The Colombian delivery company would receive one billion dollars from the Japanese conglomerate to complete this operation.
The next startup on the list to receive a portion of the multimillionaire fund could be a Brazilian company. Anonymous sources reported to Bloomberg that Softbank executives are in talks to invest about $230M in Creditas, a Brazilian lender fintech.
The details of this transaction are not yet public, and no decision has been made so far. The sources who spoke to Bloomberg on the issue indicated that Softbank could retract the operation.
Latin American startups established a record figure in 2018 in venture capital investments, managing to raise more than $2B.
Creditas is a fintech that offers loans at lower interest rates than what Brazilian banks usually offer. Since its creation in 2012, the Brazilian company has lent more than 500 million reais. This company raised 250 million reais ($ 63.4 million) in two rounds of investment in 2017 and grew seven times concerning 2016. In 2018, the Fintech startup became five times bigger about 2017.
Among the investors of Creditas are InnoVentures of Banco Santander SA, Amadeus Capital Partners, Quona in Capital and Vostok Emerging Finance.