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Vixtra Raises $3M Seed Round To Support Latin American Importers
The fintech will accelerate credit concession to importers in the region, increasing by 20 times the monthly transacted volume in the platform
São Paulo - Vixtra, a trade finance fintech based in Brazil, has just raised $3 million in a pre-Series A round led by Valor Capital, a VC fund founded by Clifford Sobel (who has already invested in unicorns such as Gympass, Olist, CloudWalk and Merama), with participation of QED Investors, venture capital fund that has already invested in Nubank, Fifth Floor, Creditas and Sol Fácil. The investment comes after a pre-seed round captured by Vixtra in 2021.
Fintech had also raised over the past 12 months $1.5 million in equity, with angel investors - who are partners of Sertrading (one of the largest trading companies in Brazil) - and $5.5 million in debt, with local asset managers. Now, with this new round, the company will accelerate the transaction volume in its payment and credit solution for international trade.
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“Importers in Latin America have a very high working capital requirement, as they cannot get payment terms with their international suppliers. We have transformed the reality of many businesses by offering specialized credit for international trade, in a less bureaucratic way”, explains Leonardo Baltieri, co-founder of Vixtra.
Founded by Leonardo Baltieri, Guilherme Rosenthal and Caio Gelfi, Vixtra works as a payment method that offers an extended payment term for companies to buy imported products, mainly in the tire, chemical, metal and electronics segments — primarily coming from Asia. “This new round of investments will accelerate our growth. Our expectation is to increase the volume of transactions by 20 times by the first half of 2023 and expand to new markets, keeping very low delinquency levels”, he continues. Baltieri adds that Vixtra has already financed “millions of reais and so far, has not had a single default loss”.
Technology in favor of international trade
The pandemic has accelerated the digitization of many sectors. With Foreign Trade, the scenario was no different. Vixtra, which has technology as one of its pillars, will also use the resources to further strengthen its systems.
“Vixtra is, above all, a technology company. The world of international trade has always been very analogical and, since the beginning, we believed that bringing technology into this environment would be transformational. We are bringing more efficiency through automation, software development and creating confidence through intensive data analysis. We have always given priority to this pillar of innovation, and Vixtra will continue to build its own technology to further improve its customers' experience and drive this market forward,” says Rosenthal.
The digitization of many international trade data bases has accelerated in recent years, creating new opportunities for fintech. This is because Vixtra leverages several bases to offer import credit in a much more assertive way. “At Vixtra, we look at the entire transaction history between importers and exporters and, with that, we are the method by which an international supplier can give extended payment terms to customers who are on the other side of the world. We grant credit by looking at performance and not just considering traditional financial statements. In addition, through a platform, importers can manage all their import processes and have access to suppliers of the most varied foreign trade services,” says Gelfi.
Growing more than 30% in 2022, the Brazilian import market was worth US$ 220 billion in 2021 alone, according to the Ministry of Economy. There are more than 42 thousand Brazilian companies that import, with more than 90% of them importing a volume of less than US$ 10 million per year and, as Brazilian small and medium-sized companies, they have very restricted access to credit and extended payment terms. It is worth noting that the volume of imports in Brazil has a lot of space to grow because, according to the World Bank, the country annually imports only 15% of its GDP, while the world average is 29%.
With high expectations for this new moment, Gelfi concludes, stating that “the new round will allow Vixtra to further advance the credit concession to current and new customers, expanding the resources availability and allowing small and medium-sized importers to grow at an accelerated pace, bringing Brazil close to the level of imports that developed countries have”.
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