On Wednesday, Visa Inc. (V.N) bought Brazilian fintech platform Pismo for $1 billion, showing confidence in Latin America despite a funding slowdown.
Pismo is Latin America’s largest fintech exit since Nubank went public in late 2021 and the year’s biggest startup exit.
Visa, the world’s largest payments processor, acquired Tink, a European open banking platform, and Currencycloud, a British cross-border payments firm.
Pismo’s cloud-based infrastructure for Sao Paulo banking institutions issues Visa and Mastercard (MA.N) cards for over 70 million accounts and $200 billion in transactions.
Mastercard considered buying the financial infrastructure startup earlier this year. It refused to comment.
Sling Hub reported an 82% drop in Latin American venture capital in May due to high-interest rates and recession fears.
Visa said Pismo’s management would stay following the transaction.
Ricardo Josua, Daniela Binatti, Juliana Binatti, and Marcelo Parise founded the seven-year-old company. European, North American, Southeast Asian, Indian, and Latin American operations.
SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Accel, and Headline, which invested in the seed round and held 30% of Pismo, invested $110 million.
