Brazilian payment platform Zippi announced a $16 million Series A round led by US fund Tiger Global and followed by Y Combinator, Volpe Capital, Rainfall Ventures, Globo Ventures, Hummingbird, Mantis, MSA Capital, Soma Capital, and founders of companies such as Faire, Robinhood, Plaid, Creditas, Kavak, Cobli, and GoJek.
Zippi presents itself as a “credit & instant payment method”, which allows micro-entrepreneurs to use the PIX (Brazil‘s real-time payment system) to buy inputs for their business using Zippi’s credit.
Their card helps gig workers run their businesses while ensuring they never accumulate unpayable debt, and the way they do that is by offering a card with weekly billing cycles and instant credit release.
It is the first of its type in the country. All is done by Zippi’s app, by which the customer can monitor all transactions made, the credit used, and the remaining balance.
The startup was founded by André Bernardes, Ludmila Pontremolez, and Bruno Lucas, who participated in Y Combinator’s 2019 Summer Batch.
The funds will be invested primarily in the Zippi’s team, currently of 26 people, in product development, and in expanding the operation.
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