Tribal raises $60m from Softbank, Coinbase to grow fiat and crypto payments in LATAM
“Tribal is using crypto to fundamentally change the rules of the game for payments and lending. Very few companies can bridge TradFi and DeFi in such an innovative, yet seamless way”.
Tribal has raised $60 million in a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Latin America Fund with participation from Coinbase Ventures, BECO Capital, QED Investors, and Rising Tide.
Circle Ventures, AGE Fund, Third Prime, Canas Capital, and Acuity Ventures also joined as strategic investors by tapping secondary shares.
The Series B funding round which raised $60 million leads to a total of $140 million after having raised $40 million in a crypto and fiat hybrid debt round led by Partners for Growth (PFG) and Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), and $34.3 million in a combined Series A and debt round led by QED Investors as well as PFG, with additional participation in the equity round by SDF.
Focus on Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile
The new funds will be used to support its growing customer base in over 22 countries across Latin America, with a focus on Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, where the firm continues to build its local teams.
Amr Shady, Chief Executive Officer at Tribal, said: “Tribal is attracting the best talent to power our business growth. We’ve grown our LatAm volume by 90x in 2021. We’re thrilled to have value-add investors with strong operating experience who share our vision of democratizing access to world-class financial services for emerging-market SMBs.”
Mohamed Elkasstawi, Chief Strategy Officer at Tribal, added: “At the intersection of crypto, credit, and payments, there are amazing opportunities for FinTechs in emerging markets. We could not be more excited for what 2022 holds for us and our customers.”
Shu Nyatta, Managing Partner of SoftBank Latin America Fund, commented: “Tribal is using crypto to fundamentally change the rules of the game for payments and lending. Very few companies can bridge TradFi and DeFi in such an innovative, yet seamless way. We are incredibly excited to be partnering with Amr and the team as they expand credit for small businesses in emerging markets.”
The Latin American region represents a $175 billion market opportunity with sixty-two million SMBs transacting globally every year. Mexico is Tribal’s biggest market.
The firm’s beta spend management platform was launched to enterprise customers in December 2019 in order to offer SMBs in emerging markets access to physical and virtual corporate cards.
The pandemic triggered a skyrocketing demand for better digital B2B financial products and Tribal took the opportunity to launch Tribal Pay in 2020.
Tribal Pay provides customers with international and local wires to 180+ countries and enables them to finance these payments for up to 120 days.
The company hired a global management team of former leaders from HSBC, Visa, Experian, Mercado Libre, American Express, Nubank, Marqeta, and Didi Pay to spearhead growth as it scales across markets.
