LatAm List – Klar wants to make banking services available to every Mexican. And to do so, this ten-month-old startup raised one of Mexico’s largest seed rounds to date, closing $7.5M in equity funding from Quona Capital, Santander InnoVentures, aCrew Capital, FJ Labs, and Western Technology Investment.
At the same time, Klar received a $50M debt financing from San Francisco’s Arc Labs to advance their product development. Currently, Klar offers both debit and credit products to customers. While their credit card interest rate seems high at 40%, it is still significantly lower than the 60% average in Mexico. However, Klar wants to provide credit transparently, far from the norm in Mexico where most credit lines are fraught with fine print and extra charges.
Under 15% of Mexicans currently have access to credit cards. Klar CEO Stefan Moller told Crunchbase News:
“I think our opportunity in Mexico is even greater than what Chime has done in the U.S. because if you think about it, about 50 percent of the population doesn’t have a bank account. Chime has done a phenomenal job in a market where people have access to bank accounts. Here in Mexico, we have that target market plus the 50 percent of people that don’t have a bank account.”
Klar is currently leveraging a star team in Mexico City along with a development team in Berlin. They will use the investment to offer their digital banking services for free to new customers.
Read more in Crunchbase News.
