Mexican Neobroker Flink raises $57M with investors such as Lightspeed and The Chainsmokers to increase financial inclusion in LatAm
Flink, a Mexican City-based neobroker has raised $57 Million in a Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
This financing comes six months after Flink raised $12M in a Series A round, which was led by Accel. The Series B was also funded by existing backers Accel, ALLVP and Clocktower, as well as Mantis Venture Capital, a new investor founded by The Chainsmokers. The startup has raised almost $70 million since its inception in 2017.
Neobrokers can be described as startups disrupting the investment market. They offer a platform that allows a wider variety of investors to participate in the stock exchange by giving them more options for incremental investments and mobile-based interfaces to manage and track their money. They are growing in number, with Scalable Capital, Bitpanda, and Trade Republic all being present in Europe.
Sergio Jimnez Amozurrutia from Mexico City felt that the fact that only a small percentage of Mexico's population can invest in capital markets was unfair. He believes that the inability to participate in the capital markets is a sign of the rich becoming richer, as part of an infrastructure built for the wealthy.
Amozurrutia sold Easy Credit, the consumer lending platform he had built with Rick Rafael Bueno (whom Amozurrutia met at Tech de Monterrey in 2015), and set out to provide Mexicans access an app-based consumer trading platform.
Flink's app was launched in 2018 by a wallet service. It is a digital and physical global debit card backed Mastercard. Last year, Flink began offering fractional share buying and selling starting at 30 pesos.
Amozurrutia stated that users can invest as low as US$1 with no commissions. Flink is the best way to save, invest and use money.
There is clear demand for the startup's products and services. Flink now has 1.6million users. This is an increase of 1 million users from the February raise. Flink has over 85% first-time investors. According to execs, GenZers are the most interested in investing. 27% of its clients are aged between 18-25 years, and 22% are millennials.
Amozurrutia stated that less than 1% Mexicans have legacy banks. This means most Mexicans don't have a bank account or a brokerage account. Flink was founded on the belief that Mexico's financial system should be available to all and not just a few.
According to Amozurrutia the company is increasing its user base by 38% per monthly and its revenue by 31% each month. It boasts a user acquisition cost only 62 cents. He said that it is the largest Mexican retail brokerage service. Flink now has 110 employees, compared to 25 employees a year ago.
The startup intends to use the new capital to continue growing its team and expand its services to other countries in Latin America.
LATAM is plagued by a lack of retail investment access. TechCrunch spoke to Amozurrutia about Flink's efforts to address this issue. We want to offer everyone the chance to invest and grow their funds in LATAM.
Mercedes Bent, Lightspeed Partner, said that her company fell in love Flinks mission statement and impact on Mexicos financial system. Flinks also allowed Mexican investors to invest fractional shares and access the U.S. Stock Market.
She said that many equities platforms restrict you to investing in stocks in your country. Flink is also focused on education. They create an investment experience that makes it simple for users to join.
Bent and Will Kohler shared their passion for creating financial inclusion in Mexico via a blog post.
The pair shared their excitement on the video screen. We wanted to be part of Flinks vision of the future, beyond stock access.
Flink is Lightspeeds third Mexican investment, after Stori and Frubana. Bent and Kohler also say that there are more to come.
They wrote that they believe in Mxico and are bullish on LATAM.
