Aplazo, a Mexican fintech, raised a $5.25M seed round led by Kaszek Ventures. Picus Capital and Woodson Capital also participated in the round.
In Mexico, only 11% of the population has a credit card, so accessing credit for payments is not widely available. Aplazo is changing this with its omnichannel buy-now-pay-later platform.
“We see our platform as the basis for democratizing credit in Latin America,” said Angel Peña, co-founder and CEO.
Aplazo allows users to pay for online purchases in installments, either online or in store, but without the use of a credit card. The platform uses Open Banking underwriting to assess a customer’s credit potential and determine affordability and provide a fair credit offer.
The company launched in November 2020 and has already partnered with more than 500 merchants in Mexico with a monthly growth of 40%.
“It is a huge space that is ripe for disruption. The team is taking the right approach to building a consumer lending platform that is very customer-centric and data-driven to help add tremendous value to merchants,” said Mariana Donangelo, partner at Kaszek.
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