Kapital Raises $165M to Empower Small Businesses and Expand Global Banking Reach
Our goal is to build a global bank to eventually connect everybody in the world.
Bank and technology platform Kapital has successfully secured an additional $40 million in Series B funding and $125 million in debt financing, with Tribe Capital leading the Series B round and support from investors such as Cervin Ventures, Tru Arrow, MS&AD Ventures, and Alumni Ventures.
This marks Kapital's second investment this year, following the $20 million Series A round in May, which also included $45 million in debt. Co-founded by Rene Saul and Fernando Sandoval in 2020, Kapital aims to provide small businesses with financial visibility using data and artificial intelligence, akin to what larger enterprises enjoy. This empowers customers to oversee and manage their business operations and cash flow in real time, with the added benefit of AI-driven underwriting for small business loans.
Saul emphasized the disparity in credit access for small businesses, noting that in Mexico, only 10.5% of such enterprises have access to total bank credit. Kapital seeks to address this issue by offering financial visibility to small businesses, a mission that has propelled its customer base to 80,000 small businesses in Mexico, Colombia, and Peru by 2023. In September, the company acquired Banco Autofin Mexico S.A., which already boasted 65,000 customers. Kapital, having achieved profitability, reported a remarkable sixfold increase in revenue over the past year.
With plans to allocate the new funding to research and development, as well as technology development, Kapital aims to enhance its cross-border offering and expand its product suite to provide valuable insights for customers. One key focus is accelerating the development of predictive analytics technology, enabling business customers to optimize margins by choosing different vendors.
Saul highlighted the broader capabilities now available, stating, “Now we have a bank, and we can create embedded finance options. We also control the payments and can connect to everything around customers seamlessly. Having operations in three different countries in Latin America also means our customers can move the money faster. Our goal is to build a global bank to eventually connect everybody in the world.”
