Brazil’s Ume raises $15m in Series A led by PayPal Ventures

By Gloria Methri

Ume, a payment network and merchant services platform for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) on Pix, has raised $15 million in Series A equity funding. PayPal Ventures led the round, which also included NFX, Globo Ventures, Clocktower Ventures, Big Bets, FJ Labs, Endeavor and Norte Ventures.

Ume has also raised a $20 million FIDC debt facility from Verde, Wersten Asset, Itaú, Credit Saison and Milenio. The equity funding and debt facility will be used primarily for sales, marketing, and technology to accelerate Ume’s expansion into new regions and enhance its Pix capacities.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) has become one of Brazil’s most popular financial services, with nearly 71% of Brazilian consumers regularly making instalment purchases, according to the Brazilian credit bureau Serasa Experian.

Ume offers its consumer financing product through its network of 6,000 merchants in Brazil, reaching more than 220,000 consumers. By enabling consumers to use BNPL products across all of its partner merchants, Ume has driven strong repeat usage behaviour, with 85% of purchases coming from repeat customers.

Now, Ume is leveraging Pix to scale and grow its business by building a Pix-first payment network and merchant services platform that enables SMBs on Pix to offer greater flexibility in payment options for their customers.

“Our vision is to build a next-generation payment network and merchant services platform on Pix rails that provide Brazilians with more accessible and flexible payment methods and enables thousands of Brazilian SMBs to grow their businesses,” said Berthier Ribeiro, co-founder and CEO of Ume. “By creating infrastructure on the Pix rails, we are able to provide SMBs with an array of financial products that they can quickly, easily and conveniently offer to their customers – fueling their growth and improving how Brazilians shop and pay.

“By building its infrastructure on the public Pix rails, Ume is able to quickly scale up by instantly onboarding new merchants and consumers. Today, 80% of purchases using Ume happen offline, while 20% are online. Ume has capitalized on the ubiquity of Pix in Brazil and has gained impressive traction,” said Ian Cox, Investment Partner at PayPal Ventures. “We are excited to be supporting the Ume team as they continue to build the future of payments in Brazil.”