Mexican fintech Stori achieves unicorn status after a round of 150 million dollars

Story financiers Sherman He, Marlene Garayzar, Bin Chen, GY Liu and Nick Chen pose for a photo in Mexico City, Mexico, in this distribution which was distributed to Reuters on July 14, 2022. Story / Handout via REUTERS

MEXICO CITY, July 15 (Reuters) – Fintech Stori, which lends to many Mexicans without bank accounts, became the second Mexican startup in 2022 to reach a valuation of more than $ 1 billion, giving it the status of “unicorn”. after a $ 150 million round of financing in Series C, the company said Friday.

Stori reached a valuation of $ 1.2 billion with the round, led by BAI Capital, Singapore’s GIC and GGV Capital. Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Vision Plus Capital, Goodwater Capital and Tresalia Capital also participated.

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“The funding will be used to reach more users of our credit card product in Mexico and expand our portfolio of financial education services,” Marlene Garayzar, Storis’ co-founder and first Mexican female leader of a unicorn, told Reuters.

She said that the credit card penetration in Mexico was around 12% when Stori started studying the market.

The startup offers loans in a country where only 31% of the population has some form of credit, while most Mexicans with credit cards still tend to use debit cards provided by retailers, according to the country’s statistics bureau.

“We talked to potential customers to see what they needed, and most of them said access to credit, not just a card, since they wanted a way to start building their credit history and access credit in the market,” he said. she.

Stori, which offers loans of as little as 500 Mexican pesos ($ 24), accepts 99% of its applicants and tries to approve card requests within 10 minutes.

Garayzar said the company, which has more than 1.4 million customers in Mexico, aims to reach 2 million by 2023. It also plans to expand elsewhere in Latin America next year, she said, without specifying which countries.

($ 1 = 20.8240 Mexican pesos)

Reporting by Valentine Hilaire; Edited by Christian Plumb and Edmund Blair

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