MEXICO CITY, Oct. 25, 2021 — Nelo, a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) and merchant checkout mobile application, announced it raised a $20M Series A funding round. The round was led by Two Sigma Ventures and existing investors including Homebrew, Susa Ventures, Crossbeam and individual investors including Anthony Pompliano, Gokul Rajaram and Emilie Choi. Founders and employees from Wealthsimple, Orum, Alloy, Chime, Square, Primer Capital, Gaingels and Moving Capital also participated in the round.
Nelo’s mobile app enables Mexican consumers to make purchases without a credit card. Consumers can finance everyday purchases from phone and utility bills to common subscriptions and help its customers build credit for higher-cost items. The app provides access to over 100 merchants including Steve Madden, Amazon, Spotify, Netflix and Telcel. With applications on both Android and iOS, Nelo’s revenue is growing 50% month-over-month and the company is seeing more than 100,000 new purchases and transactions monthly
“Our goal is to enable digital commerce through Latin America starting with BNPL in Mexico,” said Kyle Miller, CEO and Co-founder of Nelo. “We believe that BNPL in Mexico will have a greater impact in the country than credit cards. Nelo is the only BNPL company in the region that has both a consumer mobile application and an embedded checkout experience for merchants.”
Digital commerce is booming in LatAm, projected to reach $116.2 billion in 2023. Even in its infancy, Mexico was the fastest-growing ecommerce market in 2020 worldwide. Below are other key trends driving the market for Nelo’s capabilities:
- Expanding access to credit: Less than 15% of the adult population in Mexico has access to credit cards. Nelo’s underwriting capability approves consumers for credit without the need for a card; customers can pay directly in the app and start building credit at the same time.
- A cultural preference for installment payments: Installment payments or “meses sin intereses” (months without interest) in Mexico have been used for decades, but it has only been available offline. Nelo offers a mobile app that makes it easy online.
- Favorable demographic and regulatory environment: In addition, Mexico has favorable demographics for BNPL adoption. Mexico’s median age is 27, which benefits adoption since, in the U.S., 47% of Gen Z and 40% of millennials have already used BNPL as a payment method.
“While BNPL is already a widely used payment method in the United States, Europe, and Australia, this lack of access to credit provides a great opportunity in Latin America, particularly in Mexico,” said Frances Schweip, partner at Two Sigma Ventures. “The combination of Mexico’s relatively young population and the growth in the adoption of banking and mobile ecommerce creates a great opportunity for Nelo.”
Nelo is focused on hiring and recruitment and will use the funding to grow its roles in data, engineering, finance, operations, and product for its offices in Mexico City, New York City, and remote locations. Nelo also plans to expand its customer base and develop more product offerings as it works toward the goal of building the largest credit and payments company in LatAm.
About Nelo
Founded by former Uber international growth team leads in 2019, Nelo is a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) and merchant checkout mobile application available on Android and iOS. Consumers can use Nelo to pay for purchases with more than 100 merchants including Steve Madden, Ben and Frank, Amazon, Telcel, Netflix and Spotify.
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