LatAm List – Albo is the largest neobank in Mexico, providing digital banking services to over 200,000 customers across the country. The startup, founded by Angel Sahagún in 2016, recently announced a $19M extension to their Series A round from US-based Valar Ventures.
This extension brings albo’s Series A to $26.4M after they closed $7.4M from Mountain Nazca, Omidyar, and Greyhound Capital in early 2019.
Valar Ventures was founded by Peter Thiel, Andrew McCormack, and James Fitzgerald and has previously invested in other fintechs including N26 and Transferwise. However, this investment was Valar’s first in the Mexican market.
“We identified the leadership of albo as a strong example of the growing fintech ecosystem in the region,” said Andrew McCormack, General Partner of Valar Ventures. “Albo is changing the rules of the game and driving financial inclusion from a talented team, with great ambitions. Based on the experience we have in digital financial services worldwide, we want to grow with them and take them to the next level of operations in Mexico.”
Up to 45% of Mexicans are currently unbanked, with little access to traditional financial products such as lending and savings through traditional banks. Albo’s Global Mastercard product helps thousands of Mexicans access these products every day without dealing with the bureaucracy and high fees of traditional banks.
This round of investment will help albo develop additional products such as a savings plan, as well as growing their team. Albo is not the only neobank operating in Mexico, but Sahagún is confident that the market is large enough to hold many players who can provide more sophisticated products to Mexican customers.
Albo previously received investment from Magma Partners, Arkfund, and Eric Perez Grovas in their Seed round.
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