Every place is all about ‘buy now, pay later’ at present, and Latin America is no exception.
Addi announced raising a $75 million extension from its Series B funding, bringing the total amount to $140 million. The startup has raised $35 million as equity led by Union Square’s Opportunity Fund as well as $30 million as debt funding from Architect Capital.
They have dual headquarters, one in Bogota, Columbia and another in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The company declined to reveal its valuation, and just hinted that it is triple times the value they had 90 days ago, as the Series B funding has led them to be in the dollar range of hundreds of millions.
Greycroft, a New York-based company, led the extension, along with active participation from new investors like Citius Capital, Intersection Growth Partners, and GGV Capital, as well as pre-existing backers like Endeavor Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square’s Opportunity Fund, Monashees, Quona Capital and Foundation Capital.
The latest funding helped Addi to raise a total of $220 million in equity and debt since its inception in September 2018.
The co-founder and CEO of Addi, Santiago Suarez, elaborated how Elmer Ortega, Daniel Vallejo and himself built the company with a vision of establishing digital commerce as a reality in Latin America, a place with lesser technological transformations, resulting in only 25% of the residents to have credit cards.
Suarez said how this could be attained by facing the payment problems and solving them, followed by creating a frictionless method of payments under affordable circumstances for the customer base to fulfill what they want.
Addi started an offering of buy now, pay later, which allowed customers to purchase their required goods in a few clicks on the screen. At present, they allow their customers to pay for their purchases after three months without any cost. For big purchases, Addi allows customers to take 24 months for completing the payment at fair and competitive rates.
The company is available for e-commerce, brick-and-mortar purchases and mobile transactions throughout Columbia and Brazil, with vivid plans of expanding its market in Latin America in the near future. It particularly wants to enter the Mexican market and have fruitful business there within 2022. Addi has grown its GMV by 13 times since the beginning of this year, as per Suarez.
At present, the company focuses more on growth than profits. They currently have 260 employees, from being a team of 120 people a year ago. They are proud of being one of the few Latin American businesses which provide equity to every staff member. They have around 150,000 customers at the moment, which is increasing by 30-40% every month. They work with about 500 merchants, including renowned brands like Claro, Keep Running, Mario Hernandez and Arturo Calle. They also formed a strategic partnership with Banco Santander, earlier this year. Addi is said to have rebuilt the market.
