Financial institution and AI-enabled platform for Latin American SMEs Kapital has closed its up to USD 100 million Series C funding round, reaching a valuation of USD 1.3 billion.
Led by Tribe Capital and co-led by Pelion Ventures, Kapital’s funding round also saw participation from Y Combinator, Marbruck Ventures, and True Arrow. With the newly acquired capital, the company plans to accelerate the build-out of its unified, AI-enabled financial ecosystem developed to maximise SME performance across Latin America.
The Series C funding round follows Kapital’s Series B and debt financing from December 2023, when the company raised USD 165 million. At that time, Kapital planned to utilise the capital for research and development, especially in improving its cross-border offerings and growing its product suite to provide actionable insights to customers.
Kapital’s development strategy
Built as a technology-first bank, Kapital’s systems have been designed to be efficient, scalable, and automated. That foundation enables the company to launch new products natively while also acquiring traditional institutions, removing outdated infrastructure, and rebuilding them on its stack. According to Kapital, this resulted in higher margins, longer customer lifetimes, and decreased loss ratios compared to fintech firms that do not own banking licences or infrastructure.
Joining the group of unicorns emerging from Latin America is set to support Kapital in continuing its growth through the combination of a banking licence and proprietary software. Taking a regulatory-focused approach and ensuring that each step of its expansion falls in line with policymakers’ requirements will allow Kapital to further advance tech-enabled banking across the region.
Furthermore, as detailed by the company, this strategy has already scaled its balance sheet and extended its reach to 300,000 customers across the US, Mexico, and Colombia. Kapital intends to continue to modernise infrastructure through AML and KYC compliance, machine learning, and AI-driven risk systems.
