The financing, which starts at USD 50 million with the option to upsize to USD 150 million, will help the Mexican unicorn boost its lending operations, accelerate its expansion throughout Latin America and invest in its technology. Following this investment Clara is working on expanding into Peru and Chile next.
The new credit line should help the company more than double their coverage in Mexico, while also focusing remaining resources in their product development and geographic expansion.
Despite popular beliefs in the industry that unicorns are not getting the finance they were once experienced, Goldman Sachs has extended credit lines to several startups in the region as recently as this year. In July the entity lent LATAM’s major ecommerce platform MercadoLibre USD 233 million, to help with the latter’s expansion in Mexico and Brazil.
The bank also helped Brazil-based Nubank in its fundraising of USD 650 million to fuel its expansion in Mexico and Colombia.
Partnering with Goldman Sachs is a solid step for Clara as it seeks to keep growing, representatives from the company said. Clara intends on expanding their client portfolio further, and the US bank can help with that, continuing to grow together.
Clara reached unicorn status, or a USD 1 billion valuation, in December 2021, only seven months after its first funding round. The startup operates in both Mexico and Brazil and recently expanded to Colombia. It works with 5.000+ companies and aims to double that number by the end of the year. The company plans to explore additional financing both through investment rounds and debt, but not in the immediate future.
It seems that South America is still a fertile grazing place for unicorns. Apart from Clara, startup Stori also reached the status in July, after the Mexico-based startup that offers credit cards to the underserved population has raised an additional USD 50 million in equity at a USD 1.2 billion valuation.
The startup claims that its in-house technology and underwriting allows it to come up with a credit offer for anyone who applies, regardless of their card history, through a paperless, mobile-first onboarding process.
Asia is another place where startups can skyrocket, as India-based credit card fintech OneCard showed us in July when it got to the unicorn status following a round of funding worth upwards of USD 100 million, bringing the company to a USD 1.4 billion valuation.
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