Our Investment in Apurata seed round

Better financial products for underbanked Latin Americans

Only 1 of ever 3 of Latin Americans have access to formal credit from banks, credit unions, or other formal lenders. The rest of Latin American adults, when in need of a loan, borrow from neighborhood lenders that can range from the wealthy neighborhood “Senora” to shark lenders with APRs above 100,000%. Apurata is born to bridge the information gap that keeps underbanked Latin Americans from accessing credit products from high quality institutions.

We are happy to announce our participation in Apurata Seed Round to help bring better credit products to the Latin America middle class

The problem

No credit history, No credit. No credit, No credit history. The vicious cycle of lack of access to credit is born primarily by middle class and lower middle class Latin Americans that have informal jobs, independent businesses, freelancers, or most people without a well established corporate job. When any of these people need access to financing, they are faced with a dearth of options.

The solution

Apurata addresses the need of the underbanked population by developing a product that is customized to meet the needs of each borrower, matching income flows and debt payments, that is flexible to repay, and that can be serviced in small increments that permit most borrowers from meeting their obligations. In addition, using propietary in-house technology, Apurata can credit score the intent and ability of each customer to complete their payments.

The opportunity

In Latin America, the estimated demand for credit from the underbanked population is $20 to $30 billion USD, with each country representing a $3 to $5 billion dollar opportunity in assets, basically equivalent to $30  to $40 billion USD in gross interest income.

Challenges

Fintech startups face multiple challenges, including regulatory issues and competition from well established players that have a significant funding cost advantage.

Changing how the lower middle class in Latin America transforms the lives of millions of people, enabling them to access credit in a secure and conveniente fashion.

The company is looking for developers and credit risk experts to continue their growth. Investors with extensive experience in the fintech sector that are interested in considering an investment opportunity in Apurata may contact us.

 

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Investment Thesis: Technology adoption and middle class growth

Latin American consumers will evolve over the next 5-10 years, driven by an increase in technology penetration and raise in middle class affluence.  These changes will uncover unmet needs for the at-large population across multiple verticals, and agile start-ups are best positioned to take advantage of these opportunities.

To date, the amount of seed capital available in Latin America has been constrained, to a large extent due to a very limited amount of previous success stories and the significant cost of scaling up businesses across the regions.

With the advent of low cost infrastructure (cloud computing) and higher penetration of internet media (social networks), growing businesses regionally or expanding to more developed markets has become a viable strategy for startups.

Combined with the advent of venture capital funds like Escala.vc that are focused on providing seed capital for entrepreneurs, we expect to develop a new batch of startups that have successful Latin American or global platforms, and are able to create and capture significantly more value than previous generations of entrepreneurs.

Technology adoption:

• Mobile Broadband Connections to reach 500mm in 2017 from 100mm in 2012
• Smartphone penetration to reach 45% in 2017, from 20% in 2012

Middle Class growth

• Affluent and middle class expected to double to 100mm by 2020 from 2010