Brazilian FinTech Neon Raises $80M to Expand Product Access

Brazilian digital banking FinTech firm Neon on Thursday (July 21) announced that it has raised $80 million in its first Credit Rights Investment Fund (FIDC) focused on credit cards, increasing the total fund to $170 million, a number that is expected to double, according to a press release.

Asset management platform Empírica is charged with managing the new fund, the release noted.

“The funding endorses the strength and positive history that we have been building in the management of the credit portfolio over the last few years,” said Jamil Marques, Neon’s chief financial officer. “Today our credit engine is mature and the FIDC resources will give us the strength to continue expanding our portfolio in a sustainable and balanced way in the med-long term.

“The focus continues to be on the Brazilian worker, and always with the mission to reduce inequalities by building paths to credit.”

Earlier this year, Neon raised more than $40 million for its private payroll deductible Credit Rights Investment Fund.

“We are excited about this partnership that began on the first months of the year as a one-off investment in another Neon FIDC, focused on private payroll loans,” Giuliano Longo, managing partner of business expansion at Empírica, said in the release. He noted that Empírica might increase its investment as the fund grows.

“Based on this good experience, we expanded our relationship to take over the management of the credit card fund,” Longo continued. “The intention is to bring more comfort and security to investors, including ourselves who, via funds of funds managed by us, contributed a total of $20 million US to Neon. This shows an alignment of interests with the other investors in this fund.”

Earlier this week, PYMNTS wrote that British embedded banking FinTech firm BankiFi landed in North America with the debut of BankiFi Americas, a move that supports the digitization and payment modernization requirements of small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Related: BankiFi Americas Launches in US With Focus on Small Business Banking

BankiFi’s open cash management platform allows financial institutions to embed a solution that can be personalized for SMB clients’ needs. The company said digital workflows can help collect payments, automate data integration with accounting platforms and offer insights on optimizing working capital.