Dock, one of the leading platforms for payments and digital banking in Latin America, announced this month it has raised $110M in funding, led by Lightrock and Silver Lake Waterman. The funding, which brings its valuation to over $1.5 billion, will be used to accelerate the company’s product development roadmap and international extension plans.
Latin America is currently witnessing stratospheric growth of investment in its fintech startups. In 2021 investment in the sector reached $5 billion, compared to the $2 billion raised in 2020.
Powered by open API technology and a cloud-native platform, Dock serves 65 million active users in the region via its clients.
The company has not only become a leading business-to-business financial technology infrastructure company in Latin America but also has contributed to the acceleration of digital adoption of financial services in the region.
“This is only the beginning for us,” said Antonio Soares, CEO at Dock. “This investment validates our vision of bringing great solutions to the market that solves real business problems for our clients while increasing and democratizing access to financial services. As we close this funding round, we are excited to continue innovating and expanding while building products that help our clients grow by providing fast, efficient, and personalized financial services to their customers. We add value because payments and banking are complex global businesses with local specificities, and we understand that better than anyone else.”
The growth in Latin America is being driven by three key factors: the adoption of an estimated 10.8 million people in Latin America who are using digital banking services for the first time; regulatory policy and central banks that are determined to increase levels of financial inclusion on a continent where 60% or more of the population may be unbanked; and fintechs clearly defining the markets they want to reach.
“The growth of fintech in Latin America is a classic example of ‘leapfrogging’ — fintechs have leveraged the need for financial inclusion amongst large swathes of the population to move straight to a new generation of services,” said Ricardo Anhesini, head of financial services for KPMG.
The still significant room for accelerated growth of the financial services market in Latam, and the focus on building a sustainable future, were deciding factors taken into account by Lightrock, the global private equity firm when leading the financing round.
At the same time, Lake Waterman expressed pride in participating with Dock’s management team to help the company continue to expand throughout the region, as the startup is becoming the platform of choice for companies to further digital banking throughout Latin America.
