According to Brazilian newspaper Época Negocios, Fintech CondoConta, from Florianópolis, Brazil, has just received an investment of 6.6 million reais in a seed round led by the manager Redpoint eventures, which also invests in companies such as Creditas and Olist. Darwin Startups, which accelerated the business in 2020, also participated in the round.
CondoConta was born with a proposal to be the bank of Brazilian condominiums. Founded in 2019 by Rodrigo Della Rocca, Marcelo Cruz and Atílio Borges, the company proposes to help liquidators and administrators with the financial management of residential condominiums. The business was managed for one year and started operating in April 2020. Less than a year later, it already has 300 client condominiums.
By working only with condominiums, the startup specializes in the particularities of this type of CNPJ and is able to open digital accounts in a totally digital way. To customers, it offers services such as TED, PIX and issuing zero-fare tickets. In addition, it remunerates the reserve funds with 100% of the CDI.
With the investment, the company’s goal is to reach 2,000 customers by the end of 2022. To do this, it needs to double its team, from 25 to 50 people, invest in technology and launch new products for users of the platform. “We are targeting new business opportunities, such as financing solar energy generation systems and cashback programs for the payment of condominium fees,” says Rocca.
Millions for a Billionaire Market
As a company founded by partners with great experience in the condominium administration market, CondoConta quickly attracted the attention of investment funds. When it started operating in April 2020, the startup was already included in the mapping that Redpoint eventures was doing on the Brazilian condominium market.
“It is a gigantic market, with a lot of insufficiency in administration, finance, community management. In the United States, companies like NextDoor are beginning to tackle the problem, so we decided to look for solutions in Brazil ”, says Romero Rodrigues, managing partner of the fund.
As the startup managed to conquer more than 200 condominium clients in a few months, Redpoint decided to lead the company’s fundraising round, opened in the last two months of last year. According to Romero, in addition to the experience of the partners and the size of the market, what most called the fund’s attention was how the company’s solution facilitates the lives of liquidators and administrators.
Although Brazilian condominiums are entitled to a CNPJ and a bank account, they are not companies themselves, which makes them unattractive to traditional banks. Fintech, which is used to this audience, has discovered a great opportunity in the operations of anticipating receivables and financing works.
According to the president, Rodrigo Della Rocca, the startup moved 25 million reais only with the product of anticipating receivables in the first eight months of operation and today, its client condominiums add up to more than 10 billion reais in real estate.
Now, with the investment, the company plans to acquire at least 1,000 more customers in 2021 and another 1,000 in 2022. Although ambitious, the goal is still well below the total of 500,000 condominiums that are estimated to exist in Brazil. “The challenge is to be able to maintain these growth rates without losing our quality of service,” says Della Roca.